To Be Anything
by laughgasms
Summary: Frustrated painter Jennifer Check and children's book-writer Anita Lesnicky inadvertently find love in each other and struggle to keep their love alive even if it means having to sacrifice life itself to be anything for the one you love. AU, OOC. R&R!
1. Happily Never After

**Thanks for taking a look at my newest story! The plot unravels as you read and I'll be posting regularly to keep up with your reviewing urges:P The POVs alternate every chapter and we begin with Jennifer's. Each chapter is named after a song.**

**She inhales an air she'd never breathed before**  
** The air of no drama, no more**  
** She said**

** No..**  
** Happily never after**  
** That just aint for me Because finally**  
** I know, I deserve better, after all**  
** I'll never let another teardrop fall**

**~ Pussycat Dolls - Happily Never After ~  
**

**Disclaim, disclaim, disclaim...**

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"_Ungh_, yeah. Harder!" My back was banging against the kitchen wall but I held onto the cupboard above me for dear life as my boyfriend rammed into me like a jet-packed mule.

"Baby, I'm almost there. Are you?" Felix gripped onto my hips tighter and I knew by the way his rhythm slightly faltered that he was just as close to completion as I was.

"Fuck. Fe-oh…Felix!" My orgasm ripped through my body and I arched my back towards him. I let go of the cupboard and hung onto Felix's broad shoulders as I milked the orgasm from him. He let out a fierce roar with a rough thrust and stilled, crushing me to the wall.

I'm Jennifer Amie Check. I have the hottest boyfriend in the world, Felix Durandy who owns Metastar Geothermal Energy Plants and Enterprises. Seriously, he is freakishly handsome. If I'm lucky, he'll fuck me everyday like the way he just did. He's always busy with work though, but being home alone gives me time to work on my paintings. Well, Felix likes to call them my little finger-paintings but it's only because he never really understood art. Always work, work, work.

We were both breathing heavily; sweat dripping into the valley of our joined bodies. I placed my fingers against his slick cheek, catching my breath. I stared lovingly into his blue eyes as I leaned closer, hoping to kiss him. Then, his cell phone rang and he immediately pulled out of me, leaving me against the wall. He disappeared into the hallway, rummaging through his clothes that he had quickly discarded not ten minutes ago.

"Durandy." He spoke into his phone with his hand on his hip. He looked every bit the economical tycoon that he was albeit the birthday suit. God, he had such a nice ass.

I rolled my eyes and turned to the fridge for a drink of water then I sauntered over to him. I gave him the most seductive grin I could ever muster on my face as I playfully traced a finger over his chest.

"Alright, thank you. Have it forwarded to my secretary. Good bye." He flipped the phone shut and I was glad I finally had his undivided attention.

"Want to go again?" I asked as I wrapped my arms around his neck causing our sexual regions to align. I was so ready for round two that I felt the heat radiating off my body. Unfortunately, I wasn't feeling the same, _strong,_ vibes from him.

"Sweetie, we've got to get moving. The party's starting in an hour and it takes forty-five minutes for you to get ready." He was trying to unclasp my hands from behind his head but I wouldn't budge. Dammit! You don't just come home and fuck your girlfriend's brains out while she's cooking then expect her to be all sweet mother of Jesus afterwards. Give a girl a round or two…or three.

"Baby, please? You _own_ the company. Don't you think you have the privilege to arrive at a party on your own time?" I was practically begging at his feet, but his face was stolid. Once he made a decision, it was usually final.

"Jennifer, will you please get ready? I promise that when we come home, we'll do whatever you want to do. Is that a compromise?" He looked squarely at me.

I disengaged myself from his body and crossed my arms in front of my chest. I hated it when he used words like _compromise_ in front of me. It made me feel like I was just one of his workers and not the actual girlfriend that I really was. If it wasn't because I was in love with him, I probably would have dumped his narcissistic ass already.

"Okay. _Fine, _I'll get ready. Give me _forty-five_ minutes." He smirked at me then kissed the tip of my nose before collecting the clothes scattered on the floor. I slapped his naked butt as he walked past me.

"I love you." He called out as he entered the master bedroom. Crap, I only had forty-five minutes to get dressed.

-oOo-

Fifty-six minutes and three rounds of bickering later, the front door was locked and we were both climbing into his black Mercedes Benz SL 500. There were so many rules to the maintenance of his most prized possession that at one point, I was tempted to whip out my set of paints and color the sides in with a rainbow effect to it. The rules ranged from: no eating in the car, or blasting the radio or else the windows would loosen in their frame, or my personal favorite, no touching the steering wheel with oily hands or else the leather would corrode. How the hell can I avoid oily hands if human skin is filmed with a thin layer of natural oil? I tried reasoning with him with the last rule, got into a fight with him because of it, but eventually shared a night of hot make-up sex anyways.

That was what I loved about our relationship—that no matter how big or small our scuffles would be about, they were always resolved one way or another. Recently, all our fights ended with make-up sex and despite the fact that I _loved_ the sex part, I was worried that the make-up part of it was the extent of our communication with each other.

What's more was that Felix was a man of few words. In fact, his pursuit of me was comical to say the least. It was two years ago, and I had just gotten out of an art class. Usually, I would buy a cup of coffee at the nearby bistro and he was at the café that day. As I turned around after paying for my coffee, he bumped right into me causing the searing hot beverage to spill into my blouse.

"_I'm so sorry!" Felix immediately retrieved a handful of napkins then began to dab away at my chest._

"_What the fuck, get your hands off of me!" I pushed his hands away then looked up angrily at his face. Suddenly, I forgot why I was so angry as my gaze was met with piercing blue eyes. I felt my face softened as he smiled apologetically at me._

"_Excuse me," I'd been blocking the exit of the cashier lane and my reverie was momentarily disrupted by an old, gangly woman impatiently tapping her feet at me. I stepped out of her way and looked back at the man who'd just spilled my almost-two-dollar-cup-of-coffee down my shirt._

_Out of nowhere though, we just begun to laugh at each other—me, at his terrified expression and him probably at my coffee-stained, now-see-through shirt._

"_Uhm, would you like me to buy you another coffee?"_

"_I'd like that." And because of my typical genial personality and his mega swoon factor, we'd been inseparable since. _

I'm pretty sure that I had made the right decision with him. I was at the point in my life where I was ready to make life-long decisions and because I wasn't a believer of true love and all the soul mate bullshit, I found myself to be content with Felix. Him and all his car rules.

Thirty minutes later, we were pulling into the Embassy, one of the hippest nightclubs in the city. Felix had rented the entire building for his employees' Christmas party and only Embassy could have been at par with his impeccable standards. Felix was _always _the meticulous one in our relationship and sometimes I wondered if he was gay.

Before he climbed out of the car, he pulled me in for a sultry kiss that made me forget all my errant thoughts of his gender inclination. After he thoroughly devoured my mouth, I stared up at him dreamily and he smirked at me once again.

"Let's go?"

I sucked in a breath. I never really liked crowded places, especially _dark_ and crowded places so I never really frequented clubs. But this night meant a lot to Felix so that pose as my obligation. Putting on a brave smile, I said, "Alright, let's go."

-oOo-

As I perceived it to be like, the club was already full of people. There was a group in the middle that was moving to the rhythm of the thumping house music and several other groups scattered about. I never let go of Felix as we squeezed our way through the crowd and I shut my eyes before I could hyperventilate. I couldn't breathe because I felt like I had no space to move but I held close to Felix as he maneuvered us over to the side where he apparently was headed to.

"Hey! Rafael, how's it going?" I quickly opened my eyes and saw Rafael Batista get up from a chaise to greet his best friend.

"Amigo! You greet me as if you haven't seen me in days. Weren't we at work together this morning?" Rafael joked with Felix and laughed. There was such an easy confidence to Rafael that made everyone feel comfortable enough around him. He was very good-looking with wavy hair and deep-set, brown eyes. Rafael was lankier and taller than Felix was but his exuded confidence and charisma made him seem just as strong and bold as my boyfriend.

"Hello, Jennifer so nice to see you again!" Rafael greeted me in his heavy Mexican accent and he bent towards me and kissed both of my cheeks.

"Now, now Rafael, she's mine. Better watch it!" I knew that Felix was only kidding around with Rafael but his grip around my waist tightened considerably.

Felix pulled away and smiled widely at his best friend. "Oh come on, I would never steal this _Chiquita_ away from you, _nombre_! I've got my own mama with me here," Felix gestured towards the woman who was sitting beside him on the couch. "This is Anita, my girlfriend, _muy caliente_."

Anita stood up and swatted Rafael in the shoulder. "Elie, seriously, would you please stop describing me using very provocative adjectives in Spanish? It isn't _my _ego that needs stroking tonight." Anita was about my height and weight, but where I was dark, she was light. We both had the same weird, pale skin but she had blonde hair and strangely hazel-colored eyes.

I had only realized that I was gawking and smiling at her when she turned into my direction and extended her hand out to me. "Hi, you must be Jennifer Check. I've heard a lot about you." Her smile was radiant and I immediately grasped her hand in formal greeting.

"You've heard a lot about me?" Who would talk about me to her?

"Yeah, Felix just can't shut his mouth when he talks about you."

"Really now?" So much for a man of few words.

"Speaking of the ego-stroking," Felix interjected and I braced myself for a below-the-belt-joke. "Rafael, would you care to do the honors?"

"Why, _nombre_, how thoughtful of you, but I'm pretty sure the announcement should be coming from you!" Rafael turned towards Felix and patted him on the back. I wondered what was going on and before I could ask any questions, Felix turned to the groups of people and raised his hands up.

"Alright, can I have everyone's attention for a minute?" He called out and the DJ promptly muted the music. "Okay, as you all know, the global recession hasn't been treating any of our sister companies very well lately and most of them have resolved into merging."

Hushed whispers erupted from the crowd. It was true; majority of the reason why Felix barely came home was because he was doing all he could to salvage and protect whatever stocks and bondages his corporation had with other companies. Every time he'd try to explain it though, he would lose me at words like _macroeconomics_ and _foreign exchange_. I know I'm not dumb but I just really don't understand business at all.

"I am pleased to inform you that we will _not_ be merging with any of the companies! In fact, Mr. Batista and I have decided to establish another plant somewhere off the coast of India. When the tough gets going, resort to international trade, is what I always say! So let's celebrate this moment and merry Christmas to all of you!" At that, the crowd applauded and hooted then resumed dancing as the volume of the music increased.

"Yeah okay, we're going to leave you two alone to get to know each other," Felix said while preparing to steal his buddy away from his girlfriend. "I'll see you later, sweetie."

"Congratulations! You should have told me about this!" I was gleaming up at him.

"No big deal. I know how you _hate_ business anyways." He shrugged and I knew he was teasing me.

"I'll see you later, baby."

"Don't drink too much."

He smiled and kissed me on the cheek and I looked into his direction has he walked away with Rafael, already with a drink in hand.

"Boys will be boys, right?"

I turned around and Anita was already sitting down on the chaise, motioning for me to come join her.

"You got that right," I said as I sat down, my head was still a little bit dizzy from the heavy atmosphere of the club and I lightly touched my head to ground myself.

"Hey, are you alright? I saw you looking a little woozy when you came over. Do you need some meds?" Anita was already rummaging through her purse and she quickly produced a small bottle of Advil.

"Thanks," I popped the lid and took two Advil into my mouth, swallowing the pills dry. "I just don't really like clubs, that's all."

"Yeah, I know what you mean. Random people rubbing up on you from all sides isn't exactly as liberating as a dance club experience should be." She rolled her eyes and already I found myself laughing. Like Rafael, she seemed very comfortable with herself.

I glanced over the crowd and found the two men downing shots. I vaguely wondered how it must have appeared to their employees seeing their bosses getting drunk but I realized that majority of the people in the club were already wasted so it probably didn't matter anyway.

After drinking pain meds, it was against my better judgment but I ordered Anita and myself some bubbly. We took the champagne flutes in our hands and toasted to the holidays, sipping a little bit. Because the music was so loud, we moved closer to each other on the chaise in order to hear each other better.

"So does Anita come with a last name?" I said loudly over the music that had gone into overdrive with a remix version of some David Guetta song.

"With a second name too! Anita Cara Lesnicky. I write children's books." Anita guffawed. Her face was glowing with the champagne that we were drinking; clearly it was already taking effect on her.

"Jennifer Amie Check. I paint!" Normally, I wouldn't divulge any personal information to anyone that I had just met but it seemed that the alcoholic encouragement was enough to let down a few barriers. Talking with Anita was nice; comfortable. She was quickly turning into my friend.

"You paint?"

"Uhm, yeah. Well, I never really thought of you as the children's book type."

Anita must have sensed my abrupt topic change because she just went with it after taking another swig at her flute. "Yeah, I never really give off that impression the first time around. What type did you think I was, anyway?" Her big, brown eyes were curious and challenging as they met mine.

I pretended to survey her attire that night. "Hmm, let's see now. Skin-tight denim jeans topped with a bohemian sleeveless blouse. Brown dangling earrings to accentuate the eye color, I bet; ballet flats, a body-hugging leather jacket; a beret and multiple rings." I jotted off her apparel from a list I had in my head and she looked at me with her mouth open. It was hilarious.

"I figured you to be more of a gypsy!" I almost dropped my flute as I laughed my head off. Not two seconds later, she joined in my laughter and there we were: two tipsy women laughing loudly on a bar chaise at a corporate Christmas party.

"Okay, it's time for revenge. You're all decked up in that purple cocktail dress and high pumps. You've got," she leaned into me a little bit, "Chanel N˚5 on. You belong in Hotel Ritz not in a bar full of drunks! And me? A gypsy? Okay fine, allow me to foretell your future. You're going to be hauling out your drunken boyfriend pretty soon because I'll be doing the same thing!" She laughed at her own joke and I looked into our boyfriends' direction.

Their faces were beet-red and their collars were loosened. Felix had that glazed look in his eyes that signaled his intoxication. I sighed quietly, knowing that Anita was right and that our time together would be almost up. I didn't know why but spending time with Anita made me realize how lonely I really was. The only person that I ever talked with besides myself was Felix. I needed to get out more often.

I glanced back at Anita who had just finished drinking her champagne. She wiped at the corner of her lips and looked back at me and smiled.

"Well this has been fun, huh? Let's exchange digits and get together again sometime, yeah? I had a great time talking with you." She whipped her phone out and held it out for me to type my number in. I hoped that I wasn't tipsy enough to forget or enter the wrong number so I concentrated really hard, furrowing my brow a little. I gave her my phone and had her enter her number.

She sighed. "Well, let's go lug those two inebriates out of here." She rolled her eyes and got up causing me to laugh at her insistence.

Indeed, when we got there, I noticed their table to be full of empty shot glasses. I cringed to myself because I never liked Drunken Felix. Minus the throwing up factor, Drunken Felix shouting at me all angry was enough to make me feel sick to the bones.

"Hi baby! We were just talking about you!" Felix was slurring his words and I quickly hooked my arm into his before he toppled off his bar stool. I gave Anita an apologetic look and she shot me one, too. Apparently, Rafael preferred to laugh out each and every word while he was under the influence.

"I thought we were talking about Hawaiian chicks?" It took Rafael thirty seconds to get that sentence out. God, drunken men disgusted me. I knew that both men were respectable but they're alcohol-induced behaviors were enough to make me forget that they were big-time corporate owners.

Felix glanced at me then at Rafael again. "I thought they were the same thing!" Then they started laughing again.

"Okay, enough, Felix. Come on, I'm taking you home." I tugged at his arm and surprisingly, he moved along with me.

"You too, _pepito_. Before I call your mama…" Anita and Rafael moved away from us. They must have been parked on the other side of the building.

"You know I _love_ you, right, Jen?" He towered over me and the smell of Burbon and whiskey invaded my nostrils.

"Where are your keys?" I patted his pants' pockets and retrieved them from his back pocket.

"Ooh, trying to get frisky?"

"Shut up, I'm driving."

"But your oily hands are going to get all over my car's steering wheel." He whined like a toddler while tripping over his own feet on the level surface of the ground.

"Not if I have them connect to your face multiple times." My light mood was quickly dissolving.

He laughed at me. I deposited him into the passenger seat. Before I got to my side of the car, he was already promptly passed out, leaning against the passenger window. I sighed.

_Fuck my life.

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_**Not the kind of story you had imagined, was it? What do you think are Anita's thoughts about meeting Jennifer? Tell me in a review! =)**


	2. Tattooed on My Mind

**I forgot to mention, I have another FF account, whollistic8and8hopeless**. **This is just an account that I made to hide from my real friends who discovered my previous one. I have stories on hiatus there, but I will still use this account for the JB fandom. =)**

**I apologize if my Spanish is wrong (there is a sentence here that is in Spanish...) Check out my other profile for the other JB fics I wrote ;)**

**So, this chapter is written in Needy's POV. That's basically all I'm spilling.**

**And I can't get you out of my dreams**  
** Now I know that you're the dangerous kind**  
** And your smile is tattooed on my mind**  
** And I can't get you out of my dreams**

**~ D'Sound - Tattooed on My Mind ~  
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**_Disclaim, disclaim, disclaim...

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There's something to be said about the morning after. The morning after a whole day of shopping; after finally completing a book; after extreme parties that leave a person out stone-cold. This morning, as I lay beside Rafael who was snoring peacefully, I wondered what kind of morning it was. I turned onto my side and opened my eyes. Everything was blurry because I didn't have my contacts on so I reached over to my bedside table and retrieved my glasses. The sunlight streamed into the room but its rays were touching the carpet nearest the window it was coming in from which meant that it was around noontime. I quickly scanned through my memory and perceived it to be Sunday which meant that I could either sleep in or get started on my next book.

I carefully turned over to Rafael's side of the bed and suppressed a smile. His eyes were crusted shut and his mouth hung open, allowing for a steady flow of morning breath to pass through. All that aside, he was the most adorable looking man in the entire world. It had taken a lot out of me when I dragged him into the apartment but it was even worse dressing him down for bed. My evening would have been perfect if he hadn't gotten wasted with his best friend. I liked Felix a lot; I mean, he was a really handsome guy and all but sometimes, I think that he was such a bad influence on my boyfriend.

Breaking me from my reverie, Rafael snorted a little causing me to stifle a gust of laughter. I realized that when he would wake up (which would probably be soon), he would have a splitting headache. I didn't want to be right beside him when that happened so I carefully got out of bed. Barefooted, I padded into the kitchen and brewed myself some coffee. I felt more in the mood to clean and organize rather than eat so I went through the bills on the counter and started writing out checks.

When I don't work on my books, I'm usually finding an excuse to clean the apartment or reorganize a particular section of it, usually moving the furniture around. To Rafael, it was already a common routine for him to come home and not know where to sit because I would have moved the couch elsewhere already. I just hate having to see the same things all day everyday and I usually hate having a routine, though I recently realized that my whole life was planned out so meticulously. I like to mix and match a lot of the chores that I have for the day just to give a little excitement of adventure or plain variation to my basically repetitive, boring life. I didn't have any other outlet to channel my otherwise creative juices besides writing it out so subconsciously, I made a habit out of rearranging the furniture.

Apart from that, I had just recently moved into the city from Devil's Kettle, Minnesota. Roughly six months ago, Rafael was sent out on field research in the state's various parks. He wound up getting lost in Devil's Kettle one day and I happened to be the kind soul to show him around town. I immediately thought of him as good-looking—not entirely handsome on an Adonis level like Rafael was on but he had charming, affable features like his radiant smile. At first I had a hard time understanding most of what he was saying because of his accent but he would always smile after he spoke and that got me hooked on to him and crushing like a pubescent teenage girl.

Two weeks was all it took for him to convince me to move in with him in the city when he would return. I didn't have anything to leave behind except a few friends and my memories. My parents had died and my brother and I were raised by foster parents. My adoptive mother occasionally visited me when I moved to the city but I never really hear from her as often. William, my brother, had moved to New York shortly after he turned eighteen to pursue his own dreams in life. We still kept in touch but all the same, I was detached. So naturally, I had been more than willing to be whisked away by a charming Mexican man who had been looking for a probable geothermal location. It was fate working in mysterious ways because my humble town happened to be home to a very controversial waterfall. The water cycle of Devil's Kettle Falls caused unearthed heat to settle into the deep soil under the waterfall and that's what had attracted Rafael to come. He certainly got more that he was looking for when he had decided to get lost in Minnesota and be found by me.

As if on cue, I heard my boyfriend groaning from the bedroom. I looked up from the kitchen counter and waited for him to come out.

"Fuuuuuuuck," he complained while trudging into the kitchen. His hair was in disarray and he was squinting through his sleepy eyes as if the kitchen light was scathing.

"There's some water in the fridge and a bottle of Advil on the counter," I gently reminded him because he seemed lost in his own kitchen. He simply nodded at me and obediently fetched himself a glass of water and downed three painkillers. He shook himself out a little bit then turned to me, probably feeling better.

"What are you working on?" His voice was raspy and sort of sexy, but it always sounded like that when he woke up.

I held up a check and continued writing others out when I put it down. He toddled behind me and kissed me sweetly on the neck, causing a smile to break out on my face.

"Elie," I called him by his nickname, "why don't you just stay in and rest today? It's Sunday and I don't want you working." I tilted my head up to look at him and his expression was apologetic.

"Yeah, I'm sorry. I know I've been working a lot lately, huh? It's just that Felix and I have been working on our new project and it sort of took its toll on me last night. I hope you can forgive me for getting drunk last night." Despite the fact that I was totally irked about him getting wasted in front of his workers, I was swooned by his gentlemanliness of apologizing. He didn't need to say sorry because I understood that last night was his well-deserved celebration. Nonetheless, I was flattered by the fact that he did.

"What are you talking about? I'm not even angry." I shifted a little on the kitchen stool to face him better and I held his face in my hand. "I love that you care a lot about your work and even if I haven't seen you as much nowadays, I still know we're good. We've always been good." I punctuated my statement with a firm smile and a nod of my head.

Despite the fact that I knew I loved him a lot and he reciprocated my feelings for him, we didn't have to constantly show that we loved each other because the premise was always there. We had this unspoken trust that ran so deep that we could talk about other people without getting jealous of each other. Rafael was the best friend that I ever had and I knew he felt the same way, too. If ever we would have a falling out, we would resolve it by not speaking with each other the whole day and then talking about it and everything else at night. It was a funny routine but it had always saved our relationship in the end anyways.

"I guess. I just hate leaving you alone at home all the time. Why don't you go out and explore a little?" He knew that I hadn't made a lot of friends since I moved in with him and that sort of scared him a little bit.

"Elie, you know how my skin rejects sunlight." I rolled my eyes. I really couldn't stand the sun; I never enjoyed hiking trips or the beach or even strolls in the park without taking a gallon of sun block cream with me. Among my many stellar qualities I also liked to exaggerate and be sarcastic from time to time.

He pinched my nose. "That's not what I meant, and you know it."

"I'm fine,"

"How many friends have you made since you came to the city?"

I didn't say anything.

He cocked his eyebrow. "That's what I mean. So help me, _si no va a buscar a un amigo_—,"

I put my hand up. I knew he was being serious because he started speaking to me in Spanish. He really did care about what I did when I wasn't with him and my heart lurched forward. How could a man be so thoughtful and caring while still suffering from a hangover?

"Okay, okay. Seriously, I'll go look for a friend. _Bien?_"

He smiled at me, contented with my answer. "I love it when you talk in Spanish to me," he playfully rubbed his nose against mine and held me tighter.

"That was one word," I breathed against his mouth before claiming it with my own.

"Mmmh, then I must begin teaching you more, mustn't I?" He whispered in between kisses; his hot breath sending chills down my spine.

I reasoned that I still had a lot of chores to do and that he had to rest so we broke the kiss and he slumped his way into the bedroom to sleep some more. I rolled my eyes and decided to redesign the living room for the seventh time that month.

-oOo-

The sun was nearly setting when Rafael received a call from Felix asking him to report to work because of a major issue they had to iron out. Against my better wishes, I let him leave knowing that he would make it up to me anyway and that whatever it was, it was probably really important. On the bright side, this gave me enough time to work on my books. I didn't know why, but the only time that I would be graced with inspiration is when I would be totally alone and my environment would be quiet. For a few hours at least, I would be able to outline a new story.

I worked with Bells and Teeter Publishing Co., a publishing group that specialized in selling books for children with special needs. Their books varied from educational to simple fictional stories. I'd been working with them for three years—ever since I had gotten out of college—and I've been a close associate ever since. I was glad that I was one of their 'esteemed' (I haven't exactly been a best-selling author but when it came to my work, I am a very religious and passionate person) writers or else they probably wouldn't have consented to letting me move to the city. I keep in touch with my editor via e-mail and that seems to be all the communication I need with them besides the check that comes with every few pages that I would give.

With Rafael gone, the apartment seemed very still, almost as if it was waiting for me to stop procrastinating and begin working. I surveyed the flat and was very pleased with the new arrangement of furniture. The far wall was this huge panel of windows that connected the floor and ceiling, giving me the perfect view of the city and the sunset. Despite the tranquil ambiance, I felt incredibly lonely and felt guilty when it dawned on me that I really hadn't made an effort to make any good friends since I moved.

Without my conscious intention, I started thinking about Jennifer Check. Talking with her last night made me feel like I was back home in Devil's Kettle where all my girlfriends were. I felt lonely _and _homesick and there was just something about Jennifer that made me feel really comfortable. Besides the fact that she was stunningly beautiful—even with celebrity standards, she was naturally at ease with people. Or so I thought because as I replayed our conversation last night over in my head, I noticed how she would sometimes avert her eyes when she told me something about herself and there was a constant furrow in her brow at every detail she expounded about a figment of her life. I didn't want to see too much into it though. Besides, we shared a bottle of champagne and even though we didn't get as hard-core wasted as our boyfriends had gotten, it could have been enough for silly old me to hallucinate. My system never really learned to absorb alcohol well, anyway.

Either way, I liked talking with Jennifer. Vaguely remembering that I had her input her number into my phone, I realized that I might have found the answer to my 'loner' problem. But would she want to see me again? And why was I fawning over this so much? All I needed was a friend and then Rafael would stop breathing down my neck about it because he already had a gazillion other things to worry about. I loved that he cared but I can totally fend for myself. It was too late in the day to call her for a coffee date so I promised myself that I would get around to inviting her one of these days.

I glanced at the digital wall clock above the computer table and realized that it was past time to plan out a story and put my thinking cap on. In a literal sense, it's this old bonnet that I used to wear in college. It's my lucky hat and it's saved me from imminent deadlines. There was just something about that old rag of a head cap that centered me and helped me focus on writing. With the cap on my head, I readjusted my glasses on the bridge of my nose and switched to writer's mode.

"Okay, Lesnicky. What are we going to write about?" I bit my lip and started to think about random things that I could pop an idea out of. All I could think about though was the conversation that I had with Jennifer. I sighed and began typing. It wouldn't hurt to have an idea even if it was as silly as it was.

"_Once upon a time, there was a black-haired girl named Jennifer…_" The words began to flow easily through my mind and onto the keyboard that I hadn't realized that I had been smiling to myself the whole time.

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**I actually do have a 'thinking cap' that helps me focus. I don't know; its magic. **

**Okay, I know that this chapter was short but I just wanted to give a short preview about Nee--erm, Anita's life.**

**I'll be posting another chapter soon! Stay tuned for Jennifer's POV coming up next. =)  
**


	3. One Fine Wire

**Woohoo! High school life is coming to an end for me. Exams are over and finally done with. Clearances are being signed. Graduation day is being practiced for. And all the while i have Fanfiction to always go back to. I'm feeling oddly nostalgic about everything. *sniff sniff***

**Well this chapter is in Jen's POV and we finally get some more Anita - Jennifer interaction!  
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**Jennifer is a little bit neurotic in this one. We see the Jennifer that no one else gets to see so it's bound to be a little…weird. Bear with me =)**

**And I'm juggling all the thoughts in my head**  
** I'm juggling and my fears on fire**  
** But I'm listening as it evolved in my head**  
** I'm balancing on one fine wire**

**~ Colbie Caillat - One Fine Wire ~**

**_Disclaim, disclaim, disclaim...

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When I paint, I always imagine _myself_ to be the blank canvas. It's never been difficult for me to lapse into a complete silence that basically shuts down my entire system. In this way, all I can hear is my steady heartbeat and the air that's quietly filling my lungs. When I open my eyes, all I see are colors swirling around the blank board and my body instinctively catches the colors in my hands and puts it on the canvas. This can go on for hours and hours until I'm exhausted enough to faint because I'll only realize that the last meal or drink of water that I had would have been eight hours ago or more.

I can never tell what time it is exactly in my painting room because there isn't a clock in there. It's really just a cube of space more than an actual room because there's only one small window on the far eastern side and a ventilation shaft on the ceiling. The smell of paint is stained into the walls and it grounds my mind more than suffocates me. One of the walls is decorated with my paintings, drawings, and sketches and I call the wall opposite this my Freedom Wall because I basically do anything on it. I splash paint on it, I scratch parts out, and I burn the edges too. It's where I can lash out my emotions when they get the better of me.

I won't let anybody in this room. Not even Felix is allowed—not that he'd actually go in because it's a total mess in here and he can't stand the smell. This is my own personal bubble and I can be myself in here—no pretenses or masks. I've cried in here, and laughed by myself. I've even done drugs in here but nothing too drastic. I only wanted to try it out and get a little bit more eccentric with my work.

If there's such a thing as method acting, then what I do is method painting. I really _become_ my painting and I try to absorb as much of its essence as possible and let it become a part of me. Conceptualizing a piece isn't too difficult if I have a thought or emotion at the forefront of my being. That's the problem with vulnerability and masks, if I feel something, I can't get it through the façade or else all my insecurities will just pour out and I'd breakdown. It had happened once before and I swore to myself that I would never let it happen again. So I started painting.

I remember my very first painting. It was after my dad left me and my mom when I was fifteen. All I could remember were shouts and screams coming from downstairs and a tire squealing into the distance not long after. I stood at my window for the rest of the day, wishing that my father would come back but he never did. I stayed cooped up in my bedroom for a week and then I realized that I couldn't bear what I was feeling anymore. All of my repressed emotions of a broken family, teenage hormones and all that shit were just too much to deal with for a teenage girl like me. Something came over me as I dug into my desk drawer for a silver permanent marker. Next thing I knew, my mom was banging on my bedroom door, bidding me to come out but I couldn't hear her. I was drowning in my pool of thoughts. Then after a while, I came back to myself and stared at my first work of art.

It was of a baby wolf cowering in a corner being stared down by hundreds of eyes—one pair, in particular, looked exactly like my father's. When I finally let my mom into my room, she looked as if she was about to scream my head off but when she looked at my wall, her face turned into one of shock. We both stood in my bedroom looking at the drawing—me, alternating between what I drew and the expression on my mom's face. She grew all teary-eyed and hugged me, telling me that it was okay, that Dad would come home and that she would stay sober. It was all really hard to believe with the smell of gin wafting into my nostrils. Instead of pushing her away and submitting to my feelings, I realized that she wasn't worth it, I opted to just hug her back and soothe her, realizing that she probably needed the comforting more than I did. Since then, no one had ever deserved to know my true feelings, not even Felix. I feel sort of bad that I lie to him a lot but in time, if he's the right one for me, it will just happen. Real love will happen. Besides, he might not like the true me anyway: a seriously disturbed, neurotic, method painter. _I_ certainly wouldn't like myself.

I tried to remove every bit of reality from my system. The itchy hem of my shirt, the creaking wooden floor beneath my soles, the busy traffic speeding down the streets; all of it. I focused on my breathing and looked deep inside, asking myself what was bothering me. All I could think about was Felix getting so wasted the other night that he passed out on the couch. That night was reminiscent of my childhood with my mother: the yelling, the smell of drunken breath, the passing out. It was all too much for me. With paintbrush in hand, I opened my eyes and touched the crimson bristles of the brush to the canvas. I don't usually think when I paint; rather I allow my energy to pass through my body and onto the paper by medium of the brush.

Felix shouting at me in my head was the clearest image I had and I begun to paint with faster, more rapid strokes. His piercing eyes were staring me down and then suddenly, something appeared in the background. Something light, soft, and brown. I stopped painting what I was feeling for Felix and listened to my emotions that were telling me to relax. Then I resumed painting, only with a different color—whatever appeared behind Felix was obviously important. I was deciding whether or not to use ocher or deep amber for the warmth that I suddenly felt. I dipped a new brush into my own mixture of brown and then I heard laughter.

I looked behind me, thinking that someone found a way through my locked door but I was alone in my room. I heard it again and I realized that the laughter was coming from my mind. Strands of hair were falling onto my face but I cared less as I fought to preserve the frayed edges of my sanity. Was I finally going crazy? I knew that I recognized that laughter from somewhere but I just couldn't match the melodic cadence to a face until my memories scanned the Christmas party. The laughter I was hearing was Anita's. Why, out of all people, would I _feel _her? Knowing not to betray myself at that moment, I continued to paint, realizing that I had been painting with the same color as her eyes. I was really starting to freak myself out.

Three hours had transpired and I felt that I had done enough for that day. I stepped back to examine my work and smiled warily. The canvas was still pretty empty and blank in a lot of parts but on the left hand side, there was a sort of abstract war of gray and brown happening. Gray swirls encapsulated the brown colors in a lot of parts but the vividness of the shade of brown was stunningly radiant against the dull gray. On the right part of the canvas, a hunter chased after the tails of the gray and brown. I didn't understand any of what I had just painted but I didn't pay much attention to it anyway. The enigma to my works was what drew in most of my clients and I let it be.

I washed off my brushes and cleaned myself off with a rag. I usually wore my painting overalls over an old wife-beater and shorts knowing that Felix didn't like coming home to my paint-stained body. Sometimes I like to paint when I'm naked only because I feel more connected to my art in that way but paint ends up everywhere and it's hard to wash it off in some places. Hence the clichéd overalls.

Stepping out of my painting room is sometimes difficult for me because it's like leaving a piece of me behind. The warm, cozy atmosphere of the room is better than the air-conditioned loft, but I tell myself that I'd be coming back to it soon anyway. After grabbing a bottle of water from the fridge, I sat down on the kitchen counter wondering what I should do for the rest of the afternoon. Felix was obviously busy at work so I couldn't bother him.

Then I remembered that Anita had given me her number. Grabbing my phone, I scrolled through my phone book and true enough, 'Anita Lesnicky' was listed. My fingers tapped the phone in anticipation. Some normal girl time sounded really good but wouldn't she be busy? What would I say? _Hi, it's Jennifer from the party, remember me? Well, I was just painting you and I wondered if you wanted to grab some coffee._

I rolled eyes, decided to wing it. If she was busy, we could hang out another time. I pressed the call button and pressed my phone to my ear. On the third ring, someone picked up.

"_Speak_,"

I smiled, finding it peculiar how a children's book author answered her phone in such a condescending way. How alluring.

"Does a heartwarming children's book writer always answer her phone like that?"

"_Who is this? Jennifer?"_

Wow, she remembered me.

"Yeah, Felix's girlfriend. Listen, are you busy? I was thinking about grabbing some coffee. Care to join a friend?"

"_Sure! Funny, 'cause, uhm, I was just about to call you for a get together, too. So I'm just going to dress up and meet you wherever, yeah?"_

I gave her the name of my favorite café and how to get there then hung up as well. I took a quick shower, threw some clothes on, and was out the door in less than thirty minutes. A fucking record.

-oOo-

I arrived at Café Madrigal earlier than Anita so I ordered myself a cappuccino and found a nook that we could settle into. I was reading a magazine when the front door opened with Anita standing in the door way, looking around. I waved from my seat as she smiled and walked towards me.

"So good to see you again!" She greeted me warmly with a hug and I squelched a surge of emotion. _What the fuck is wrong with me?_

"You, too. Did you want anything?" I motioned towards the coffee bar.

"Oh no, it's okay. I'll get something myself. Be right back."

Five minutes later, she came back with a steaming mug and a blueberry scone. She sat down on the armchair in front of me, making herself comfortable. I noticed that she was wearing a blue long-sleeved shirt and pants that hugged her legs nicely, deducing that she looked kind of nice. I wished that any of my pants filled out as much as hers did but my scrawny, gangly legs never allowed it.

"So," she started. "What's going on with you?"

"Nothing, really. I was getting pretty bored at home so I wanted to just hang out. How are you?" I decided not to tell her about the new painting even if she did understand—because I sure as hell didn't.

"Congratulate me because I've started on a new book! I'm actually halfway done with it." she bit into her scone with a satisfying crunch.

"Wow, that's great. How do you get to finish something so fast?"

"I don't know, really. I think it's all about the inspiration, you know?" Her eyes twinkled as if she wanted to say something else but didn't. I decided not to ask.

We talked about more random stuff after we had gotten to know more about each other's background. Turns out that she came from the same small town (how we never saw each other, I'll never understand) that I was from but I had moved out to the city much earlier than she had. That got me wondering why I hadn't noticed her before. Both her parents had died and had lived with foster parents. When she met Rafael, she was convinced to move. She once had a pug named Achilles but he died of diarrhea. I realized that her life was full of losses and I wondered how her past could have produced such a vibrant and fun woman that was sitting right in front me today. It totally intrigued me.

"…since then, I've always been afraid of electric fans." She just finished telling me how her phobia of electric fans came to be. Years ago, her friend convinced her that drying her hair in front of the fan was the best way to get a glam look. Anita had been so wrapped up in brushing her hair out in front of the fan that her hair got stuck between the blades. She had to cut out a chunk of her hair then had the rest of it cut off to even out. It was hilarious.

"So what about you? Any phobias?" I wondered why she didn't get contacts because the glasses that she wore covered her pretty eyes too much. Realizing that the question was turned to me, I wondered what I would answer. _Everything?_

"Hmm…let's go with dark, closed spaces."

"Claustrophobia? You sound unsure of yourself."

_Maybe I am._ "No, yeah. I keep thinking that one day, all the lights are going to turn off and the sun is going to blow out. Then we'd be in the dark, and I hate the dark." I blurted out. This wasn't exactly a secret but I had never really told anyone else. God, had I any friends in my life at all?

"Living in darkness ain't so bad. Honestly, with the world today, there wouldn't be much of a difference, if you ask me." The metaphor was so profound and I wondered why she didn't write books for adults or teenagers.

"Are you kidding me? I can't paint in the dark, Anita!" I pretended to look scared and whiny and she laughed. _Beautiful, rhythmic cadence of laughter…_

"I have a nickname, actually."

"You do? Spill."

"It's Needy."

"Needy?" I tried it out and it felt better than saying Anita. It felt comfortable.

"Yeah, when I was teaching my baby brother how to say my name, he kept getting it wrong, calling me Needy instead of Anita. The name stuck ever since."

"You didn't tell me you had a brother, Needy." The name felt so much better that it lapsed into the conversation so easily. She must have picked up how easily I said her name because a small smile erupted on her lips that radiated with warmth. It was as if we'd known each other for years rather than less than forty-eight hours.

"Yeah, William Lesnicky. He's over at New York now, trying to get an acting career. He used to do Broadway; he was in the Wicked production actually." She smiled like a proud parent.

"You must be so proud of him, huh?"

"Actually, I am. Ever since our parents died, we didn't really like our foster parents much so I had to like take care of him until he decided that he was going to go all independent. I missed him a lot after he left but we found a routine of calling once in a while just to check up on each other."

"Sounds like you were a really good sister."

She shrugged. "I try to be," Then she met my eyes and for a split second, everything dissolved and it as just Needy and I at the moment. I wasn't sure if she felt it too because her smile sort of faded from her face until her glance fell down to my bag.

"Uhm, your bag is ringing."

"My what?" Snapping back to reality, I heard my phone buzzing and I quickly answered it.

"_Where are you?"_

"Felix, I left you messages at work. I'm with Nee—Anita right now."

"_Yeah I got them but I figured that you would be home by now. What time are you coming home?_"

I checked my wristwatch and realized that we had been chatting for more than two hours. I sighed.

"I'll be home soon."

Click.

"Anything wrong?" Needy inquired.

I let out a sort of irritated sound and shook my hands out. "Seriously, I'm fucking trapped in this relationship!" I meant it to be a half-joke but it came out as serious. I needed to relax. I couldn't let Needy know that I was having such a hard time with Felix as of late.

"Hey, no worries, we can meet up again some other time. I better get going too though, I still have to go grocery shopping then get to writing again."

We gathered our things then headed out for the door. It was chilly outside enough for our breaths to come out in puffs of smoke and I hugged my parka closer to my body.

"We'll see each other soon, yeah?"

"Definitely."

"Let me know how it turns out with ol' Felix boy. He sounded pretty upset."

I groaned inwardly. "You heard that?"

"Girl, the whole store heard him yelling at you through the phone. I know it's not my place but I don't think that you should let him boss you around like this any longer. It could get pretty ugly." She put a reassuring hand on my shoulder and I felt the warmth seep through my coat.

"Thanks, I'll keep that in mind." Though I was totally unsure of how to actually put it into action.

"Bye, Jen," Needy said while hugging me.

"See you, Needy." Closing my eyes, I replied—not wanting to let her go.

-oOo-

As I inserted my keys to the front door, I was already bracing myself for the wrath of Felix. If anything ticked that man off, it was being late. I quietly made my way into the loft, tiptoeing to our bedroom. I felt so juvenile sneaking back into my own home as if I came from a late night drinking session with my teenage friends. What the fuck.

"It helps if you take your shoes off—lessens the thumping sound." Felix was leaning against the couch. I wasn't facing in his direction so his voice gave me a fright as I turned around, shocked.

"Jesus, Felix! You scared me."

"I scared you? You scared me!" He pushed himself off the couch and started towards me. "Do you have any idea how worried I was that you didn't say anything at all about where you were going? Anything could've happened to you, Jennifer!" He threw his hands into the air like an exasperated parent and I felt exactly like a child being reprimanded.

"Felix, you're overreacting. I was with Anita the whole time." My voice betrayed me. When dealing with confrontations, my voice is always reduced to a timid squeak and I hated that about me.

He didn't say anything but he kept pacing in front of me. He was obviously thinking about what he was going to do with me and for a fleeting moment, I wanted him to break up with me. Instead, he let out a tired sigh, reached over, and held me tight. The weight of his body against mine was crushing the air out of my lungs.

"I just don't want to lose you, baby." He whispered into my hair, and I felt a little guilty. "It's just that, I'm always away and I never get to see you anymore. I always miss you."

I couldn't reply to anything that he just said because my love for him was dissipating by the minute. What was going on with me? I just responded by stroking his hair knowing that work must have been stressing him out lately and it was taking its toll on him. I must have been his only outlet.

Then, he started shifting and I felt his groin beginning to harden. He kissed the side of my face down to my neck and I suppressed a moan. He always knew how to make me feel good after we fought. Sooner than I realized, our clothes disappeared and we were in the bedroom sharing our similar interest for great make-up sex.

That seemed to be the only thing we had in common anymore.

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**Ergo, the introduction of the nickname Needy. It seems that Needy and Jennifer are getting closer. Is this a good thing for their relationship with their boyfriends, though? :) Please read and review! Btw, i've posted some lyrics to the songs in the titles of these chapters.  
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	4. Under the Influence

**This chapter is pretty short actually compared to the other chapters but it's just as great! =) Needy's POV for you. How are you guys liking the story so far? 500+ hits! Woohoo.  
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**I felt a strange, warm sensation rising up inside of me**

**Oh, like a tidal wave came from nowhere swept me off my feet**

**Oh, but somehow making me complete now**

**Whatever I do, I am under the influence of you**

**~James Morrison - Under the Influence~  
**

**_Disclaim, disclaim disclaim...

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My life has never been interesting. Everything has always been played out in a routine that I designed for myself. I know every single detail of my plan and nothing throws me off because I know how to get my state of mental equilibrium back. I've learned to compartmentalize and I had to learn the hard way, too. My parents dying really threw me out of my element. I was thriving in school, getting all the good grades, had a great circle of friends. And then they just died. Fucking car accident on the freeway.

From then on, my life was basically thrown into the fast lane. I had to be strong for my brother and take care of him. We stayed with our foster parents until we both got our life rhythms back on track enough for us to venture out on our own. I couldn't even cry everyday or else William would cry too and the thought of acting selfishly in front of our foster parents was a big deal for me because I wasn't that kind of person. I appreciated their efforts into making our lives better after the tragic event but it just wasn't the same for either of us. They were good people, but they couldn't ever be able to replace the people that my brother and I had lost.

Then one night I was just realized that having everything all messed up inside wasn't the way that I should live for either Will or I. Hence the idea of compartmentalization. There was one part of me that was reserved for my pained emotions, another for working, another for being strong for my brother and the list went on. It's worked well enough for me so far to survive to this day with a healthy mental state of mind. I have a stable job of being a writer, a great boyfriend who truly loves me, and I'm perpetually happy.

So why do I suddenly feel like I want to change the direction of my life? I feel so thrown off-course because…of Jennifer? I don't want to contemplate on it any longer but lately, she's all I've been able to think about. I really do wonder how she got through all of my 'compartments' and managed to mess it all up again. The conversations that we have are so easy and spontaneous which makes me believe that we've known each other since we were little kids playing in sandboxes.

At the same time though, I hate that she throws me off of my element. I've got everything set for me now and I never wanted it to jeopardize it for anything. But she makes me want to. I don't know what kind of attraction is happening between us but I am so sure that she is going to become one of those people in my life that I'd invite to my wedding. I know that she feels the connection too because I can see how the protection in her eyes sometimes falters when we our eyes meet even for an instance. It's as if for that infinitesimal moment, there are no pretenses, we're both stripped to our bare souls, no little boxes or masks, and neither of us is running away from it--from each other. Then again, it only lasts for a millisecond and we're back on either side of this wall that I'm pretty sure was built for her benefit. Why it was there in the first place, I didn't know.

Thinking about her now makes me want to jump out of bed and be with her again. Just to hang out and have fun. I realized that the monotony of my life deserves a little spontaneity and Jennifer brings it out of me—like the time I told her about my old nickname. That isn't something that I normally share with anybody because it's sort of a personal thing between my brother and I. Naturally, I had told Rafael about it but he laughed at the funny ring it had to it and that had made me not want to tell anybody else. And then I go telling Jennifer. God, I remember feeling the anxiety right after blurting but I channeled it into something else. Hopefully, she didn't see it. I just want to be me around her and I wished it the same for her. I don't know what she's shielding herself against.

"Babe?" I'd been lying on the bed I shared with Rafael who had been writing in his planner. I swear, sometimes he loved that thing more than me. Only sometimes.

"Hm?"

"I want to get a tattoo." I didn't know what propelled me to blurt that out, but having crazy thoughts running through my mind has been influencing my actions lately. I finally bought contacts but I never had the chance to wear them. I actually created a Tumblr account against my better judgment. I've actually encouraged Rafael to try out new sex positions with me (some of which require actual flexibility—a skill I have yet to acquire). Yes, something has definitely taken over me.

Rafael closed his planner and cocked his head at me, probably wondering where his real girlfriend went and who this imposter was laying in front of him. "Like for real?"

I sort of did a half-shrug, half-nodding gesture as I propped myself up against my pillow. "Well, sort of. What do you think? Would you get mad?" Some people were very conservative and against liberal acts and I thought that with Rafael's Roman Catholic background, he would have a problem with some ink on my skin.

"Of course not, babe. I actually think it's kind of hot." He smiled mischievously at me as he moved closer to where I was on the bed. He wasn't wearing any top, just his old, plaid boxers that I love seeing him in.

"What kind of tattoo did you have in mind?" I was shocked that he was open to the idea. Nevertheless, I answered him anyway.

I'm a nerd because I actually researched on the Internet about tattoo design possibilities. I discovered that I had an affinity for Japanese characters or _kanji,_ as they are called. The mystery about them and their ancient meanings really fascinated me. It was either that or a nice tribal design that would look really cool. "I'm thinking of getting a Japanese symbol 'cause they're kind of cool," I added, sounding like a total dork.

He moved even closer to me to the point that I could perfectly smell his aftershave and feel his body heat against my normally cool skin. His curly hairs on his leg were rubbing against my calf and I giggled quietly. I loved this playful side of Rafael and I love the fact that despite his hectic schedule and erratic duties, he can still find time to be with me. Our relationship, I think, is almost perfect because we know almost everything about each other and we're each other's best friend. We're almost too close for comfort and that's ultimately satisfying especially now in a world full of mistrusting people.

I don't have anything against people with façades or anything because it only means that they had such a sad past that would make them face their future with a shield up to their eyes. They have every right to that and I know I'm not a hypocrite because I wouldn't consider my compartmentalization a defense mechanism. It's the only way that I can organize my thoughts into their proper place. With Rafael nuzzling into my neck, he was making it more difficult than it already was.

"So where were you planning to put it?" He whispered into my ear as his hand began to trail the length of my leg. My breath hitched in my throat but I threw him an innocent look.

"Well, I don't know really," I began thoughtfully. "I'd love one on my back, like above my shoulder blade or on my arm maybe." He didn't seem to be listening though because he pulled me even closer to him so that I was lying down underneath him.

"You know where I want your tattoo to be?" He held my gaze.

"Right here," His fingertip traced my neck down towards my hipbone. He pushed my shorts down enough to expose my right hip and what he liked to call my 'happy trail'. "Right on your hip. That's where I want it." He began drawing his finger all over my hip to my belly button, making me squirm under him.

"Why there?" Barely whispering, I couldn't contain myself anymore. I started to place open-mouthed kisses all over his neck and loosely wrapped my arms around his lithe form.

"Because," He bent down to claim my mouth with his. "Then, I'd be the only one to see it." He added in between sultry kisses. My senses were going haywire with him doing magic on my body that I succumbed to the feeling of him moving over me.

I may have been changing, but I wouldn't want to change this for anything.

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**How long before she changes her mind? Tell me in a review! **


	5. Pieces Don't Fit Anymore

**Back with an update! This chapter is in Jen's POV, as you may have already guessed. I have an itty bitty surprise in this chapter so just sit tight and keep your eyes glued to your screen. Careful now, don't fog up the glass...**

**I've been twisting and turning, **  
** In a space that's too small. **  
** I've been drawing the line and watching it fall, **  
** You've been closing me in, closing the space in my heart. **  
** Watching us fading and watching it all fall apart.**

**~James Morrison - Pieces Don't Fit Anymore~**

**It's really a beautiful song and it fits perfectly.**

**Disclaim, disclaim, disclaim...

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**

"Do you really have to go?" I was on my belly with my chin resting on my hands and my feet bent in the air. I was completely naked underneath the bed sheets covering the bottom half of my body. Felix had just sexed me out like crazy and right after that, he resumed packing for his next out-of-town trip. Him and his scouting team were going somewhere in the Pacific to canvas for a suitable location where they would erect another geothermal plant. This always meant that he would be gone for lengths at a time, sometimes as short as a week or as long as a few months. It was usually during this time that I really took my painting seriously and got to finish a lot of work for my clients, but I wouldn't be able to evade the fact that some part of me would miss him terribly.

"Babe, you know that this is important." He was dressed in only his black boxers with his usually presentable hair all tousled in the front. In his hands were his slacks that he was stowing away into his Burberry travelling bag. Wouldn't he miss me? I wanted to ask him so badly but I was afraid to. I didn't want to seem paranoid but I couldn't shake the ill feeling of insecurity crawling its way into my chest.

"But when are you coming back?" I could ask _this_ much, couldn't I? I didn't want to sound too much of a pestering girlfriend—I wasn't usually like this when he would leave for his trips. What the hell was wrong with me? The pleading tone in my timid voice must have struck him because it had caused him to look at me squarely, stopping in his tracks. I was fiddling with my fingers when his blue eyes captured my own. There was intensity in his eyes that I hadn't seen before and that had caused my own line of sight to falter down onto my fingers. It was as if he was trying to relay a certain emotion to me but I couldn't perceive what it was.

If it were love, then butterflies would be having a party in my stomach. If it were lust, surely, the sheets would begin to soak and my skin would get all tingly. But nothing of the sorts was happening. Something had made me wonder in a tiny part of my brain if the same passion of the beginning of our relationship was still there. I wasn't just his fuck buddy, was I?

"Jennifer, look at me." I brought my eyes up to meet his. "What's going on? Are you okay?"

I sighed. What should I have said? I didn't want to tell the truth because I wasn't so sure about it myself, and I didn't want him leaving knowing that my feelings for him were fading away.

"It's just—I guess I'll miss you a lot more this time. We don't ever have time to just hang out and be together. Every spare moment that I get with you, we're either just fucking or fighting." I'm pretty sure that I meant what I had said. Why else would I feel so bothered about him leaving this time?

He leaned in towards me and held my face in my hands. The expression on his face was one of sad and guilt, making me feel a sense of self-gratification that I evoked some sort of emotion out of him besides that of an orgasm.

"I'm sorry, Jen. I didn't realize that you were feeling like this. Lots of stuff has just been going on that I've been neglecting you. I promise that when I come home, things are going to be different. Okay?"

The sincere tone of his voice made his pledge certain and I smiled in response. He kissed the tip of my nose before packing again.

"You know, I'll be dropping you off at Rafael's place, anyway. You won't be so lonely. Why don't you and Anita have some fun? You girls are friends, right?"

My eyes widen as he looked away. I had almost forgotten that I would be staying at Needy's flat for when the boys would be gone. That way, Rafael and Felix would have a better time knowing that both of their women would be safe because we'd be with each other. At the very mention of her name, I was suddenly filled with a surge of anticipation and excitement. I hadn't had a sleepover in years and the chance to one was so overwhelming. But would Needy be okay with me being there? Didn't she have other things to do besides hang out with me? I had to admit that I was really beginning to trust her and call her a real friend but I didn't know if she expressed the same sentiments about me.

Realizing the time Felix had before his departure, I had to get to packing as well so I got up from the bed, put on a robe and joined Felix in his packing.

-oOo-

An hour had passed before either of us had really finished preparing for our own trips. Well, I mostly helped _him_ pack because he was just helpless picking out clothes for himself. Being an inbred business-tycoon definitely had its disadvantages. The drive to Needy's was a quiet one; both of us were too engrossed in our own thoughts to come up with a light conversation. I had wanted to be very optimistic about the time that I was going to spend with Needy. There was just something about her that attracted me to her, like I needed to know something more about her that no one else would know. If my mature self still believed in it, she was rapidly becoming my BFF—a person that I could confide anything to. But that was becoming my problem, I was hoping that I would make friends with her and still retain a little bit of _my_ mystery and shield, but she was making me want to tear it down. And yet the more I thought about it, the more ridiculous it sounded to be so guarded all the time.

We pulled into the basement parking of their apartment building before Felix pulled my luggage out of the car. I didn't want to bring much so that I would have an excuse to go back home if ever something beyond my control would happen--my only backup plan lest things go awry. I still brought my necessities though, including my clothes and sketch pad. We got into the elevator and I found myself getting nervous, drumming my fingers against the handle of my bag and counting the floors until the elevator stopped to a shudder.

Felix knocked on their front door when we walked up to it and a few seconds later, it swung open and we were greeted by Needy. The swooshing air caused some of her hair to be caught in a swirl and I felt my throat close up a little like the times when I would see an inspiring landscape for a painting. What the fuck?

She was wearing her glasses with her hair tied up in a messy 'do, adding to her relaxed and simple beauty.

"Hi! Come on in, Rafael is just finishing up some packing." She motioned for us to come in and we shared our own silent greeting with our eyes. I felt like a teenager again.

Sure enough, Rafael had emerged out of the master bedroom dressed in a cashmere turtleneck sweater and khaki pants, ready for travelling. He greeted me with a warm hug then slapped Felix on the back. Needy came close to my side and brushed her hand against my arm, causing a weird, tingly sensation to shoot up.

"Try and make yourself at home." She said quietly in my ear and for some reason, it was enough to calm the raging inferno inside my head to a light simmer. The boys were talking about logistics and seemed about ready to go. I propped myself against the kitchen counter and looked around the place. It was every bit a perfect apartment in its normalcy. There was a small aquarium near the flat screen TV and stereo set; the kitchen was well-stocked and furbished; and the living room and dining area was simple yet homey.

"Okay, Jen, we're going to get going now. Call me if anything happens and I'll be checking in with you too, okay?" Felix broke through my reverie and placed a light kiss on my lips.

"I'll see you soon," I hugged him tightly from the stool that I was sitting on. "Have a safe trip!" I added, addressing both men. At the door, Needy followed them out and wrapped her arms around Rafael for a goodbye kiss. After they left, Needy shut the door and turned to me.

"So, what are we going to do today?" She had a mischievous grin on her face like she was suggesting something naughty and I all but laughed at her.

"Don't you have stuff to do? Actually, if you don't mind, I'm going to make myself comfortable here." I gave her a knowing smile then slid off the stool, set to unpack a little bit of my stuff. If I was going to be there for a week, I might as well feel at home.

"Yeah, you're probably right. Hey, I'm just going to make a few phone calls, then let's order some pizza or something, yeah?"

"Sounds terrific."

-oOo-

A while after I had changed my clothes and gotten settled in Needy's home (which I was finding to be extremely comfortable to be in), I was asked to pop in a random DVD and order pizza. Not really thinking about my movie choice, we ended up watch Andrew Lloyd Webber's version of The Phantom of the Opera starring Emmy Rossum and Gerard Butler. Thinking that some beer would help us get more comfortable, Needy stole a few bottles from Rafael's stash that he used when he watched basketball.

"I hate having to live vicariously through his life. It's time to give myself some love." Needy said with her perfect tone of dry humor that had always cracked me up.

Twenty minutes into the movie, there was a knock on the front door signaling the arrival of the pizza. I decided that I should pay for it, knowing that I would be staying there for a while; it seemed the proper thing to do.

"Let's raise our Corona _lites_, and wish for a great and fruitful week that will hopefully serve as a strong anchor for our long lasting friendship. BFFs." Needy had invited me to toast our third round of beer and I willfully clinked my bottle to hers, almost missing it by a centimeter. I laughed as I remembered that I had been thinking about the acronym BFF as well.

"Hey, _I_ came up with that acronym, not you!" I felt myself becoming lighter, and I knew that it was the beer talking. I didn't really like beer but I decided to try it out anyway. It obviously had a different effect on me than any other alcoholic drink.

"Whatever. That's what we are, and that's what we'll always be." Needy smiled clumsily at me and then it happened again. The silent communication with our eyes that drowned out all the background noise into a wormhole that made me feel like my ears would pop. For some reason, I felt myself scooting closer to her, somehow needing to feel more warmth. I didn't anticipate what I was going to say but it slipped through my guard before I could stop myself.

"I like to paint." I said blankly. "A lot."

"Yeah, I know." She was sitting on her side, facing me with her head leaning on her elbow.

"Do you know why, though? You know, I feel like my paintings and drawings are really a part of me. Every single piece of art that I have created is a different part of who I am and what makes me Jennifer." When I looked sideways at her, I knew that I got her undivided attention despite the climactic opera music booming from the television's speakers. I continued. "I try to paint every day, like I would in my diary or something. You know, just to keep track of what is happening to me on a daily basis. Painting is the only way I can really lose myself in my thoughts and express my innermost feelings about everything without having to let anybody know about it. Including Felix. I don't ever tell him about what I paint because I feel like he just won't _understand_ somehow. I don't even know why I'm telling _you_ this because I don't tell anybody else. Wait, didn't I already say that? Shit, I'm rambling."

I finished with an uneasy chuckle and looked back at her again. I was leaning comfortably against the couch with my feet propped up on the coffee table. My hands were tucked into the inside of my thighs and my neck was craned towards her. Her brow was furrowed as if she were in deep concentration, then she broke a smile.

"I'm stupid for asking a painter, but what's your favorite color?"

"Gray." I replied in a heartbeat.

"Gray? Like really?"

"Yeah, it's absolutely my favorite." I replied after taking a swig of my beer.

"Why?"

I thought about it for a second. "Well, white is the combination of all colors, you know, the spectrum of visible light. Black is the _absence_ of light, and gray is well, the absence of color."

"So gray isn't really a color?"

I smiled. She caught on quickly despite her inebriated state. "Exactly."

"Okay, but here's another question. In your opinion, what's the best painting you've ever created?"

Now, I really had to think about this one. I contemplated on whether or not I should tell her about the painting that I had done about her. Would she think of me as weird? Obsessive, maybe? I decided that I wasn't ready for her to know that yet despite the fact that I believed it was truly becoming one of my masterpieces.

"Haven't really done one yet." It was half-truth. I wasn't completely finished with it yet.

"Really? I would've figured that you've created a masterpiece by now." She took a swig of her beer then set it down on the table. Despite the lightly toned compliment, and easy laughter, I glanced at Needy and saw in her big, brown eyes that what she had said was sincere and had come from the heart. How can she feel so comfortable with me? I usually give off a weird, elusive vibe to other people that causes them to back off. Though I did have friends when I was in school, the real-life setting and my participation in it was something entirely different.

Yet here was Needy, silently encouraging me to trust her even more.

"I have something to tell you." I quietly said. The movie was coming to its end so the music was somber and perfectly accompanied the turn of the conversation.

"What's up?" Needy inquired, tucking into the couch even more as if she anticipated a long story.

I had already told so much of myself that I didn't really see a reason why to stop myself now. I sucked in a deep breath and concentrated on her eyes that seemed to be anchoring me to the couch. Why does she have this affect over me?

"Well, I don't really know how to say this but, Felix and I haven't exactly been so happy recently." Her brow formed a crease again and that let me know she was still listening. "I don't know what happened. It's like the passion and spark of our relationship is gone. I-I think it has something to do with the fact that he's never around anymore and I'm spending more and more time with you. But, I mean, he doesn't have a reason to be jealous, does he?" I let out a nervous chuckle, realizing how utterly wrong it sounded.

I was seriously out of control with all my thoughts swimming in my head and the alcohol catalyzing their movements. My clumsy laughter faded away as I repositioned myself on the couch, sinking deeper into the cushions, drawing nearer to the heat of Needy's body. All the while, Needy hadn't said anything, just continued to stare into my eyes as if searching for the answers to a riddle. I wanted to say, 'you're going to have to look harder than that to get through me', but then her eyes had suddenly turned a couple shades darker (I could have been imagining it). They seemed to be glowing against the dark contrast of the now, dimly-lit room.

If I had been paying attention to anything else, I would have heard her mutter, "he does," but my heartbeat was pounding loudly in my ears (almost loud enough for me to believe she could hear it). I couldn't tear myself away from her eyes, either. Afraid that I would lose my breath, I parted my lips, allowing air to freely pass through. I felt her face gravitate towards mine an inch closer and I felt a rush of heat pass through my skin.

Her eyes tore away from mine to look at my lips and I knew what she had wanted to do. What I didn't expect was how strongly the want was mutual. I mirrored the movement of her eyes and stared down at the most beautiful pair of lips I'd ever seen. They looked so pink and soft that I wondered how perfect it would be to feel them against my own. I could care less about the nagging voice at the back of my head, telling me that there would be hell to pay, but I couldn't decipher whether the voice belonged to my conscience or Felix.

As soon as I felt the tips of Needy's long, blonde hair tickling my cleavage, her lips barely brushed against mine. She simply rubbed her lips in a feather-like motion against my moist ones to get the feel of it. But that alone felt fucking awesome. The electrifying caress of her lips was enough to jolt me back to reality and I pulled away—the passionate feeling of her mouth fading just as quickly as it'd appeared.

* * *

**O.O They. Did. Not! Oh, but they did. WHAT is going on in Needy's head? What caused her to do such 'uncalled for' action? These questions will be answered in the next chapter! =)**

**Please review. =) It sort of makes me happy, y'know.  
**


	6. Twisted

**I'm back with a vengeance because this chapter will surely burst your hearts...and possibly something else. : Who am I to keep you all waiting? Let's just get on with this. Needy's POV!**

**It's twisted, messed up  
And the more I think about it  
It's crazy but so what  
I may never understand it  
I'm caught up and I'm hanging on  
I wanna love you even if it's wrong**

**~Carrie Underwood - Twisted~  
**

**Disclaim, disclaim, disclaim...

* * *

  
**

I just couldn't stop myself. Suddenly everything had changed. The moment she had begun to confide things in me that I realized she wouldn't tell anybody else, I was completely hypnotized. Hypnotized by the steady rhythm of her breath in her chest; the gentle curves and arches of her body that I hadn't noticed before; the intensity in her shadowed, sapphire eyes; the subtle plumpness of her lips that I found myself wanting to caress with my own. It was as if my senses that were cast out towards her were magnified by this force deep inside—a force I couldn't name or control. As soon as she had stopped talking, I knew that I needed to close the space between us somehow. I drew my face closer to hers, choosing to ignore the slight hesitation in me because it was giving way to a more desperate emotion.

The moment our lips had brushed together, I knew that I was done for. Whatever I was feeling for Jennifer shot through my body like a shooting star blazing across the sky. It was explosive yet was only procured from the slightest caress of our lips that got me wondering what else was in store for me. Before my thoughts had gotten ahead of me though, Jennifer pulled back instantly and a little part of me died a little bit in that moment.

I pulled back to look at her face. I was expecting anger and disgust to be etched into her expression but I only saw confusion and pain—some things I had not expected from her reaction. She continually surprised me. Her eyes had begun to water up a bit and I thought to myself that I would give anything to know what was going through her mind because I was feeling unnaturally speechless and would love to have had her opinion about what the _fuck _just happened.

We just continued to stare at each other, probably both feeling too scared to be the first to speak and break the unbidden magic that had just transpired. Her eyes were wide and searching while mine probably looked caught-on-headlights. God, not saying anything wasn't going to get us anywhere.

"I'm sorry." I willed myself to voice out even if it was through a croaky whisper. I felt as if I hadn't spoken in weeks and my voice scratched against my throat shamefully. A lot of encumbering emotions tended to make me feel this way.

A faint smile played across her lips before it quickly disappeared, causing me to believe that I had only imagined it. Again. This woman was going to drive me crazy. As if a light switch had been turned on, her face became almost statuesque, cold.

"I-I have to go," she finally said, though the words were not the ones I wanted to hear. Could I say that I wanted her to stay and help me figure this out? Was she even in a position to be going out late at night? She _did_ have a few drinks and I was worried that she might get hurt. After a quick mind-debate with myself, I figured that alone time for the both of us might do us some good.

Not trusting my voice anymore, I simply nodded and looked away, pretending not to look hurt. I busied myself with fixing up the food crap on the coffee table when I felt the couch shift, telling me that she had gotten up. The quiet sound of the front door, on the other hand, shouted in my ears telling me that Jennifer was gone.

-oOo-

I woke up the next morning sensing the steady fall of rain and the inevitable coldness that seeped into the apartment, making me want to stay in bed all day. I vaguely remembered the weather report on a forty-five percent chance of unseasonable rain showers. The wonderful thing about a dark and gloomy day was that it was my writer's spiked punch to a dry spell of motivation and inspiration. I was almost excited to get up and start writing when reality hit me on the head in the form of a slight hangover. I lied back onto the bed and gripped my hair, groaning. I hadn't drunken much, had I? I quickly scanned my memories of last night and recoiled when my mind replayed the almost-kiss. My eyes shot open and I let out a breath.

What was I _truly_ feeling for Jennifer? I bit my lip trying to figure out the answer to the inane question. Surely, I valued her as more than just a friend now. Did I…_love_ her? Well, of course I did! As a friend…so why did I feel this inexplicable tug at my heart as my mind flashed an image of her beautiful face? This was all too confusing for my sore mind to register but I couldn't stop thinking about it…her. I needed to straighten things out before I got out of bed so I stayed put and resigned into the ruthless situation my mind was in.

"Needy, what about Rafael?" I asked myself. Talking out loud always helped organize my thoughts somehow.

"I _do_ still love him. But are my feelings for Jennifer overcoming my feelings for him? Fuck, am I lesbian?!" I slapped my hands to my face, ashamed at what I had become. There was no use in denying it anyway, I was in love with Jennifer Check and I realized that I couldn't live without her in my life. I groaned to myself, wishing I had never met her so that my life would continue its monotonous and predictable outcomes. But that was it, though. Jennifer brought color to my life in more ways than I could imagine. When I was with her, I was surrounded with a blanket of bliss. As cliché as it sounded, her eyes reflected some profound form of brokenness that beckoned me to come and fix. If I could, I would want to spend the rest of my life kissing the shadows in her life away.

Then, I felt my heart jar a little against my chest when I asked myself if she had felt the same way about me. I realized that there was no way in Hell that I was going to stop loving her, but I was scared that she didn't love me back or that I couldn't have her reciprocate the same feelings. Somehow, our boyfriends seemed so small to me now that my infinitesimal world grew bigger and my perspective widened a little bit.

Jennifer. Just thinking about her made me smile and I wondered what she was up to. Part of the reason why I was so hesitant was because of her abrupt departure last night. My practical side told me that it was her way of telling me that she didn't swing that way, but before she left, she looked at me as if she was struggling to tear away from me. I drew strength from that. After all, I knew how layered up Jennifer was—probably from a shady childhood—and that alone intrigued me to no end.

I turned over to my side and stared at my bed side clock. It read 10:35 AM which probably explained why my stomach was grumbling a little bit. I needed to get something in my stomach before I took some pain relievers so I reluctantly dragged my body out of bed and trumped into the kitchen for some cereal. As I ate alone—accompanied only by the somber fall of rain—I debated on whether or not I should go over to her apartment to straighten things out. I realized how much thinking and internal arguing she had me doing because I wanted to do the right thing for her; most of the time though, I resolved into following my instincts. I had decided that I was going to go over there and simply talk to her. If she didn't love me like I did, I would accept that…but I wished and prayed that she did.

-oOo-

The drive to Jennifer's place was one of the most nerve-racking experiences of my life. I had to practice what I planned to say while simultaneously maneuvering a vehicle on slick roads in bad weather. I could barely see through my windshield despite the window-wipers working rigorously atop them. In all honesty, I hadn't actually planned what to say to Jennifer. I just needed an excuse to see her. I supposed that I should apologize again for my more than forward advances and ask that we put it behind us because I would much rather have her as a friend than nothing at all. But oh, how it would pain me to have her so close and yet so far away…

I didn't really know what to expect on the physical level of my love for her. From what I felt, I believed that I could "survive" off the immense emotions I had for her than have to resort to channeling it through sexual activities. But I had to admit, the almost kiss got my blood pumping deliciously. There was just this raw, sexual power that exuded from her very pores and I doubted that she realized her actually capacity to bring absolutely _anyone_—with or sans penis—to their knees for her.

After holding my breath for the whole trip, I finally let out a long sigh when I drove nearer to her apartment building. The basement parking was reserved for apartment owners only so I had to park out in the lot, in the pouring rain. Silently cursing high-maintenance security, I eased my way into a slot and switched the engine off. In my haste, I forgot to bring an umbrella with me, so I knew would have to sprint to the door. I sighed and threw myself out the car, rushing to the refuge of the front porch when I realized that the rain felt so good against my skin.

The cold prickly sensation seeped into my skin and helped me ground myself and soothe my throbbing headache. I felt extremely overheated as I lifted my head up, allowing the sky's tears to cleanse my face as well. I stood in the parking lot long enough to make me shiver to my bones then I walked purposefully towards the building. I remembered Rafael telling me which apartment was Felix's so I made my way across the empty reception hall and into the elevator, punching in the button that led to their floor. All the while, my heart was pumping loudly in my ears.

I walked up to Jennifer's door and raised my hand to knock but then I thought of just opening the door. To my surprise, it was open. My blood was _really_ pumping in earnest now. I pushed the door open and walked into the flat.

It basically looked like mine only much, much better. Everything looked so expensive and modern that I hesitated walking on the posh-looking linoleum with my soaking wet flats, but the fact that Jennifer was some twenty feet near me spurred me forward, motivating me. I didn't know where exactly to start looking for her though.

"J-Jennifer?" I helplessly tried calling out for her, knowing that she wouldn't be able to hear my shivering voice. _Damn, didn't she have the heater on in here?_ I began to panic as I realized that she might not even be in the apartment. Then, I heard an exasperated growl coming from somewhere down the hall. My breath caught in my throat as I walked into it, hoping that Jennifer was in one of the rooms.

I heard another exasperated sound and I walked faster, knowing that someone was inside the far end door that was slightly ajar. Hesitantly, I brought my hand to open the door. I could hardly believe my eyes.

Standing across from me was Jennifer with her back turned to me. She was wearing a huge, cotton shirt that was speckled with paint and weathered at the collar so that it exposed her right shoulder, and a pair of denim cut-offs that barely covered her thighs. In her hand was a paintbrush that she was angrily stroking against the canvas that she was working on. I had never seen her looking so _alive_ before. Her other hand was flailing about and paint was splattering everywhere. I was so at awe at the sight before me that I forgot how cold I was just moments before.

Then suddenly she twirled around. Her hair was bound in a loose ponytail so a lot of it framed her face, brushing the length of her neck. The expression in her face was feral and raw, shocking me into place as if she knew that I was watching her. She was breathing heavily from her exertions and we were having our staring contest again—only this time, I felt myself grow smaller and smaller under her fervent gaze.

I thought about bolting out of there but I couldn't find the strength to move my feet. She stalked towards me, tossing her paintbrush aside along the way. When she was close enough for me to inhale her fragrance, I felt like I was home. She smelled like a young jasmine garden growing in the summer sun, coupled with her own unique aroma that I felt personally drawn to.

The expression on her face changed; her face looked softer but the intensity of her eyes was still there. The situation was all too familiar. This time though, she took the initiative into her own hands (quite literally) by grabbing my face and sealing our lips together in a tangled embrace. As soon as I felt her hot, wet lips against mine, I felt my legs obey me again and we stumbled forward into her painting room. Our lips disconnected as our eyes met and I saw a twinkle in her eyes. My eyes drifted down onto her swollen lips and I pushed forward, connecting with them again. I felt her smile against my mouth as the rest of my body finally engaged by wrapping my arms around her lean body.

She shuddered against me and I realized that my clothes were wet and cold. Without thinking twice, I removed my jacket and peeled my shirt off. As soon as I did so, I felt Jennifer's warm hands connect with my abdomen and push me towards one of the walls. When I felt my backside connect with something hard, Jennifer kissed me with ardor, compelling me to open my mouth and welcome her hot, searching tongue into it. There wasn't even enough time for me to compare the feeling of her mouth and Rafael's because he was but a distant memory in my sex-hazed mind. The only thing that existed in my world at that moment was the sensation of Jennifer's heated body against mine.

We both moaned as both of our tongues met and engaged in a sensual dance. There was no time for languidness as we both felt the dire need to be as close together as possible. Being the geek that I was though, I needed to be sure of something first.

"Wait, Jennifer," I reluctantly broke the kiss, hearing her whimper in her throat.

"What?" She asked breathlessly, her brow furrowing slightly.

"Is this what you want? Like really?" I just had to ask to be sure. I didn't want there to be any regrets. We were already past the point of no return but I needed everything to be okay first.

Her mouth twitched into a curve as she offered me an alluring expression and I swear I felt _wetter_ than what I thought was possible. She didn't answer me but leaned into my neck, lapping at my pulse point. The sensation of her tongue stroking my skin caused my eyes to roll backwards and my hands to grip her hair.

"Oh, Jen…" I breathed. I couldn't think of anything else. _Just feel…_

"Just let me take you out of these wet clothes." She brought her head up and whispered against my lips, licking me there. She proceeded to unbutton my pants but her fingers kept slipping off the damp clasp so I gently pushed her hands off and popped it myself. She smiled at me then slid my pants off my slick skin, going down as she did so. I leaned my head against the wall as she kissed the skin under my belly button and over the band of my panty-shorts.

My knees gave out and I crumpled to the floor with her. I attacked her with my ravenous mouth as I fell on top of her. The atmosphere inside the room was actually quite humid so the water on my skin was quickly turning into warm droplets that were sliding down my body and onto Jennifer's. It was then that I realized that she was still fully-clothed while I was half-naked.

Quickly remedying the situation, I tugged at the hem of her shirt. She got the point and broke off our kiss to remove it with me helping her. Next to go were her skintight shorts that I almost ripped off her body in frustration. She chuckled against me and removed it on her own, leaving both of us in our bras and panties.

I was resting on my haunches with her on the floor leaning on her elbows looking up at me. Her ponytail had come undone causing her long, black hair to cascade around her face and shoulders making her look even more attractive. I knew that I wouldn't be able to make the first move in my stupor so I waited until she realized it while I reveled in the perfection of her body. She sat up and ran her soft hands all over my stomach and chest and around my back where she expertly unclasped my bra.

My breath hitched in my throat when she began to apply kisses all over my damp chest. When I felt her mouth venture nearer to the tops of my breasts, I moaned loudly, not caring about the volume of my sounds. We were alone.

Knowing that I had to engage myself somehow, I reached around her back, frantically searching for the clasp of her bra but felt nothing. She began to lick my nipple and I moaned again, anxiously trying to remove her bra so that I could taste her as well.

"Front clasp, Needy." She said; I felt so stupid like a horny, pubescent boy doing it with a girl for the first time. Maybe I was.

She unlatched herself from me to allow my hands to snake around to her chest where I was finally able to remove the obstructive garment. I immediately peeled it off her shoulders and dove in.

"That feels so good, _Needs_." Her usually high-pitched voice was huskier in tone and the name that she called me came out as a whimper and that goaded me further. She tasted amazing. She may have smelled like a jasmine garden but her taste was that of honey and vanilla, sultry and sweet against my tongue.

By now, she was back on the floor with me latched onto her chest, sucking on her breast, and listening to the incredible sounds that poured out of her mouth. All too soon, she tugged at me hair and brought my head up for a heavy kiss that had both of our tongues fighting for dominance.

"Needs, I need you." She breathed, connecting her eyes with mine. We both removed our own underwear and when our bodies aligned, we both groaned at the feeling of almost being complete. She ground her hips against mine, my clit rubbing against hers. I gasped at the feeling but she swallowed my sound, covering my mouth with hers.

My hands never stopped moving. I brushed my fingers along the side of her body until they found their way down between her legs. I felt her wetness and I bit my lip at the sensation. Jennifer gripped onto my shoulders and I forced eye contact as my fingers explored her sex.

"Keep your eyes on me," My voice almost croaked because of all the intense feelings raging war inside of me, and I knew she was experiencing the same thing but she did what I asked her to do. I needed to see the emotion in her eyes as I touched her in the most intimate of ways knowing that somehow, I would also be touching her soul. I brushed my fingertips against her swollen bud and she yelped in surprise.

"Aah! Ungh, Needs, you feel so good." Her eyes were rolling into her head but I kissed her to stay in focus.

"Please, look at me."

Her eyes connected with mine again and I continued. My fingers slid down into her wetness as I gradually inserted my finger into her core. This time, it was her turn to bite her lip as she stifled a moan. She was concentrating very hard to keep her eyes locked onto mine and her hands shivered anxiously as they gripped my shoulders tighter. I pushed into her harder, adding another finger, and she bucked her hips against my hand.

"More, I-I need more," She whispered, unable to find her voice. I used my hips to guide my fingers in and out; the position caused the heel of my hand to press against her bundle of nerves. She moaned with every thrust of my hips and I felt her intimate walls wind tighter around my fingers.

Then, she brought her hand down to where we were connected and pressed her fingers against my swollen clit, causing my head to fall to her shoulder, breaking our eye's connection.

"Ungh, Jennifer. Don't stop. Don't ever stop." I thrust even faster against her, loving how her moans escalated in volume. Her mouth was right against my ear, allowing me to hear every wisp of a breath.

My whole system was coiling in towards my core, preparing to explode in a cloud of ecstasy. Jennifer kept breathing my name along with other breathless moans and explicit words as I strived to bring her to the cusp of sanity with me. I brought my head up again to look at her face. Sweat beaded her forehead and dripped down towards her eyes that were scrunched tight. Her mouth was open in a soundless cry, cueing me in on her impending orgasm. I pressed my hand harder into her clit as I thrust once then twice; her mouth opened more and her eyes shot open widely as her body arched towards me. In that moment, she finally let me see the truth in her eyes. There were no false pretenses, no masks. The raw passion between us allowed her to give herself to me completely.

She cried out as she bucked her hips, riding her orgasm on my hand that was completely drenched in her essence. Her orgasm caused her hand to press just as hard against my clit and that cause my body to explode in waves and waves of colors and sounds and indescribable feelings.

I leaned my forehead against hers as we both slowly climbed down from our own highs; our bodies occasionally twitching. We were panting in unison when I connected my mouth to hers, not really kissing but just breathing into each other's mouths. The walls of her sex were still pulsating around my fingers so I coaxed another orgasm from her by rubbing her clit in two circles.

"Ungh, Needs," She silently whimpered as she gripped my body closer to hers, bringing my lips towards hers, licking them. She was obviously hypersensitive to my touch.

When our breathing patterns returned to normal, I reluctantly pulled my fingers out of her and attempted to extricate my lower half from her legs but they wouldn't budge.

"Stay with me," She whispered, pleading also with her eyes. I kissed her gently on the lips and rested my head on her chest, delighting myself with the sound of her heartbeat. In a loving gesture, she stroked my moist hair away from my face.

"Needs,"

"Yeah?" I whispered against her cleavage.

"I-I, don't have to say it anymore, do I?" Insecurity was heavily laden in her voice and that caused me to raise my head to look up at her. Her eyes were glassy with tears that had yet to fall and her bottom lip quivered slightly.

"Jen, please," I didn't want her to give up on me. We were already past the point of ruining our lives that anything else we'd do wouldn't matter anymore.

"Needy I…I love you." She leaned up and silenced me with a wet, open-mouthed kiss, preventing me from returning the sentiment that I had wanted to hear from her. But I wasn't having that.

"Jennifer, I love you _so_ much." I broke away and smiled widely, feeling the familiar bubbles of warmth erupting in my body as I giggled quietly.

She smiled back at me and stroked the side of my face as unbidden tears caused my vision to blur.

"I finally found you." She whispered against my lips as she brought her head closer to mine. Then, she closed the space between our lips and bodies again.

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**So tell me that was worthy of a review...in a review. :P**


	7. New Divide

**Here's what you asked for! This chapter is in Jennifer's POV and begins before Needy, ahem, interrupts her intense painting session for another intense...session. (= This chapter is full of 'substantial' smutty fluff that I believe to be imperative to the fullness of this story. In short, I dislike gratuitous limes and lemons!**

**So give me reason to prove me wrong, to wash this memory clean**  
**Let the floods cross the distance in your eyes**  
**Give me reason to fill this hole, connect the space between**  
**Let it be enough to reach the truth that lies across this new divide**

**~Linkin Park - New Divide~**

**Probably a weird song choice, but allow me to quickly interpret. The memory is obviously Jen's ties with Felix and the New Divide is Needy. Basically, Jennifer wants to prove that her love for Needy is real and that it is enough to break free from her old life and she'll do anything to fight for it...supposedly (hihi)**

**Long AN! Sorry.**

**Disclaim, disclaim, disclaim...

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The weather; the solitude; the peace. It was the perfect time to paint. The rain always creates this sort of bubble of silence that allows me to reflect on my own thoughts without having anything or anyone else distract me. The world is quiet and still so that my mind is screaming loud enough for me to listen to it. Right after I woke up, I quickly changed into my painting clothes and rushed into my sacred room.

The moment I entered, I knew that I was done for. All of my suppressed feelings and thoughts came crashing down with the weight of the hot, stagnant air in the room, pressing me to the floor. I felt as if I couldn't breathe as flashes of my quarrel's with Felix, his leaving with Rafael, and last night's events spun through my mind, making me feel extremely nauseated.

What had happened between Needy and I? No doubt, I loved her deeply as a friend but why had I felt a surge of life fill me when her lips had touched mine? My barrier had definitely fallen and I had let her in. What the fuck was wrong with me?! I didn't want this to happen but I couldn't help but find myself wanting to be with her again. To feel her warmth against my skin. The security of it all was so tempting and it made me feel like I didn't have to pretend anymore. I knew that the pretenses had to go sooner or later. And this was making me angry.

All my life I had built myself to be resistant against people coming into my life and changing a big part of who I am. Needy had single-handedly torn that wall down and now anger and resentment flooded my system. Feeling rather than thinking, I blindly grabbed a paint brush and dipped it into my palette. I hadn't finished with the painting of Needy; the bottom was still bear so I begun to stroke angry, rapid maroon lines there.

I continued to paint through the haze of my heated feelings with Needy's perfect face burned into my mind. Then, I felt another presence fill the otherwise, empty room. I spun around to face the intruder and my heart almost stopped beating. Drenched in rainwater, Needy was standing at the threshold of the door with an awed look in her eyes. I couldn't believe that she was actually _here_. She came for me. I didn't even think about the fact that she was standing in a room, whose floor had only felt _my_ footsteps, because I felt my body mindlessly begin to gravitate towards hers. My want and need for her was pulling me until I came face-to-face with Needy. The intensity of what I was feeling was too much for me that I had to act quickly to satiate the burning sensation within.

There was no better feeling than her hot lips against mine despite the fucking freezing clothes she was in. This was it. The insurmountable emotion imploded and unleashed itself onto Needy's lips, neck, and body. I was in love with her and I knew that I wouldn't be able to tear myself away from her even if I could.

-oOo-

Our _strenuous_ activities had both of us exhausted enough to take a nap right there on the hardwood floor. The curious atmosphere of my painting room was warm enough to keep both of us satisfied with our naked limbs tangled together. Needy's head was resting on my chest when I woke up and I carefully extricated myself from her body, laying her head gently on the floor so as not to rouse her to consciousness just yet. I needed to think.

I walked over to the small window. Soft light gleamed through as the rain had ceased and tender sunlight peeked through the sodden clouds. I felt ethereal. My body felt so rested and cleansed and I wondered if this was what post-coital syndrome felt like with a person one has a deep, almost spiritual connection with. Forget about Felix, I was fucking head-over-heels for Needy. I felt my lips curl up into an involuntary smile as I glanced over to her sleeping form. Her hair was tousled around her face and her legs were half-covered in our shirts. She looked extremely beautiful.

_What am I going to do about Felix, though?_ My smile quickly faded when my mind crossed over his name. I turned my head towards the window again as if I would be able to find the answer through the thin sliver of light that beamed down from the sky.

"Jen?" A raspy whisper called to me.

I looked over at Needy who was waking from her sleep. She rubbed her eyes to regain her vision and I found that to be so adorable. Her eyes found mine and once again I lost myself in a portal of warm, melted caramel as her sleepy, searching eyes bore into mine. But I didn't anticipate what had happened next.

"Are we going to tell them?" Her voice sounded stronger yet with a trace of anxiety and fear. She was leaning on her arm and patiently waited for my answer. Though the question was ominous, I couldn't help but be awed by the fact that we had been thinking about the same thing. One moment she had looked dreamy, and then in the next she looked calculating and distracted. I pushed off of the wall that I'd been leaning on and knelt beside her. I held her cheek in my hand and contented myself by just looking at her face. Her nose had a perfect bridge that ended in a cute button at the tip; her eyes were very round and cast a perfectly brown shade in the room's light; her top lip had a perfect archer's bow and her bottom lip was perfection in its fullness.

I couldn't have been surer of anything but my love for Needy and I expressed it in the only way I knew how. I leaned into her face and gently captured her lips with my own, reveling in her sweet taste. Her mouth opened up to me and I quickly slid my tongue into her mouth, intoxicated. Before things could get raunchy though, I slowed our pace down to languid, open-mouth kisses. She quietly moaned when I released her lips to look her squarely in the eyes.

"No."

-oOo-

I was having the best time just being with Needy. After cleaning up in the room (the paint that got on my skin while I was painting smeared all over her body when we were having sex), i changed my clothes and dried Needy's rain-soaked attire whilst joking about how much she couldn't stay away from me long enough to remember to bring an umbrella. Twenty minute after a steamy makeout session in the laundry room, we left the apartment. Despite having to leave my painting room, my sanctuary, I was glad to be out of there. It reminded me too much of Felix and though I was unafraid of him, being in his apartment made me feel restrained and bound to him. Being with Needy made me feel free.

It was still pretty early in the day so we both decided to do a little shopping in town. My painting supplies were thinning and she planned to hit the bookstore. I usually did my shopping for materials on my own but Needy made the trip all the more special.

"So what colors are you looking for exactly?" Needy asked while looking at the aisle shelves of Finishing Touches—an art supply store I frequented a lot. She had a bottle of saffron-colored powder in her hands.

I was rummaging through an old bin of paintbrushes for a specially-finished, thistle brush when I looked up at her and considered her question. I didn't exactly want to tell her that I was painting a portrait for her because I wanted it to be a surprise though I was still unsure if I wanted to give it to her or not.

"Well," I started casually. "I'm looking for some Rembrandt oil paint because the viscosity of the oil suits my painting styles, but I guess I'd have to do away with some Vasari." I knew that she wouldn't be able to understand any of what I had just said and the reality of it was plastered on her face. Confusion etched into her brow causing me to bite my lip to stifle my laughter.

"So, I'll just go over there," she motioned to the next aisle, "and get you some _Vaseri_."

I chuckled a little bit as I walked over to her, getting dangerously close. I trapped her body to the shelf by pinning my hands near her shoulders. "It's okay, Needs. I'll get it." The aisle that we were in was deserted so I allowed myself to shed a little bit of frivolity. She _did_ bring out the worst in me—enough that I smiled devilishly as I lightly traced the tip of my tongue over her lips. She whimpered and tried to catch my lips with hers but I quickly pulled away, leaving her scowling at me. I pushed my body away from her just before a man came strolling through the aisle.

He looked at us curiously but I offered him an innocent smile before brushing past him in search for the oil paints that I needed. Just before I disappeared into the other aisle, I heard Needy mutter something under her breath.

"I'm going to get you for that."

"Yeah, I'd like to see you try." I challenged, before succumbing to a fit of quiet giggles.

After I bought my supplies, we strolled around the plaza, holding hands like two infatuated teenage lovers. We window shopped through the stores, stopping in front of _Seishin_, a Japanese occult store. The store intrigued me enough to beg Needy to come inside with me to check it out.

"Needy, _please_?" I begged one last time, using my pouty lips and puppy dog eyes to coerce her.

"Jen! Seriously, this place gives me the creeps!" She tugged on my arm and I could see the genuine fear etched onto her face. I gave her a questioning, concerned look.

She sighed. "I just…don't like scary shit and there's something about this store that freaks me out, okay?"

"Yeah, okay. Geez, Needs, I thought you were going to go all Benihana on my ass."

"Benihana is a Japanese restaurant, Jennifer." She gave me a pointed look.

"Yeah, well, it was the first Japanese thing I thought of so 'you probably would've cooked my ass, _teppanyaki _style, if I pulled you into that shop'!" I repeated my now age-old comeback

"If you pulled me into there, I just might've done that!" I loved that she just went with the flow. I wasn't the most humorous person in the world and I was glad that I found someone who could deal with that. Cracking jokes wasn't my forte and Needy lovingly accepted that. I knew that I was reading way too much into everything that was going on between us but I just wanted to savor every moment together if it wasn't too much to ask for.

Next, we headed out to Powerbooks—Needy's favorite bookstore. In it, she showed me a couple of the books that she'd written. There weren't many copies of them but she assured me that it was a stepping stone; that at least, her stories had been published.

"So what are you working on now?" I was completely fascinated with her children's books. I couldn't write a simple story to save my life yet I found myself to be so absorbed in hers.

"It's pretty vague actually." She replied while scratching her forehead. I detected a hidden tone in her voice that suggested that she as leaving something out. I decided not to press it.

"Well, Ms. Lesnicky. I suggest that in the future, you and I form a partnership in which you will create the story and I shall draw your pictures." I closed the book I was reading triumphantly and smiled.

She rolled her eyes at me. "Ha! You're going to have to show me your portfolio first, Ms. Check. I wouldn't want to tarnish my masterpieces with your finger-paintings."

I playfully swatted her arm as I giggled. "For all I know," I pulled her to face me. "You're just _begging_ for my finger-paintings." God, if I kept this game up any longer, I might have to fuck her right against these bookshelves full of children's books.

"Dirty, dirty," she clicked her tongue at me, arching a brow.

I just smiled seductively at her. "All in good fun." What I hoped she didn't realize was that I was just as heated up as she was.

-oOo-

It was only when we got back to her apartment that we realized that we hadn't eaten anything yet so Needy volunteered to cook up some pasta. It didn't take her long to mix up the sauce so we just waited for the noodles to soften.

"Hey Needy, check it out." I pulled two strings of noodle out of the pot and stuck them onto the top of my lip. "I'm a Chinese man." I squinted and cocked my head to the side. I couldn't tell a joke but I knew very well how to be crazy and immature.

She laughed loudly. "Goofball." Her laughter was infectious and I started laughing at myself, too.

"Only with you," I replied while sucking one of the noodles into my mouth.

"Yeah?"

"Yeah."

"I'm going to say something just for the heck of it." She said after we had quieted down some.

"Shoot." I smiled while moving in front of her and wrapping my arms around her slender neck.

"I'm in love with you." Needy leaned closer and took the noodle from my lips using her tongue.

"Mmmh, I'm in love with you too, Needs." I whimpered, placing hot kisses on her lips.

"God, I love it when you say my name like that," Needy pressed my body against the counter with hers and purposefully ground her hips into mine. I moaned into her mouth.

"I want to continue this but," I said in between kisses. Then, my stomach growled.

She pulled away and I felt my face grow hot with embarrassment, but she just laughed at me.

"Okay, someone's hungry!"

"No shit," I smirked, giving her a sound kiss before she completely pulled away.

Lunch went by fast; we ate our pesto pasta in the kitchen, just enjoying each other's company. She told me a lot about her college life and her dreams to travel the world. Though it felt weird at first, I started to open up more about myself as well. I told her about how my dad left me and my mom, consequently birthing my talent in painting and drawing. The things I told her were never before repeated to anyone else and telling her about my life felt oddly gratifying, as if a weight had been lifted off of my chest.

After lunch, we took a quick, _clean_ shower together, then plopped onto the sofa. She wanted to get some work done on her new project so her reading glasses were on and her laptop was resting on her Indian-styled legs. I watched her work for a while until I got the idea to bring my sketchpad out to keep myself occupied—not that looking at Needy didn't consume all of my thoughts.

In the comfortable silence, we were lost in our own worlds. The rhythmic clicking of the keyboard that normally annoyed me was unusually soothing to me now and helped me concentrate on sketching. First, I drew random parts of a body for I had been out of practice. Then feet came next, fingers, eyes…

I examined my work and realized that I had been sketching parts of Needy's body from memory. I glanced at her. Her brow was furrowed in concentration and her back was crouched towards her laptop. The light coming from outside was illuminating half of her body, which made it perfect for sketching on perspective. The figure of her body was odd and that was what inspired me even more. I tucked into my position with my knees drawn up and my sketchpad resting on my thighs.

Letting my errant thoughts drift away, I let my senses take over. The rough paper stimulated my fingers; her light fragrance of an after-shower smell wafted towards my nose and focused me in on my subject. My mind was a basin of sensation that propelled my movements. After twenty minutes of my out-of-body experience, a loud, annoying noise disrupted me, jolting me back to reality.

My phone was ringing. Both of us looked up at each other from our laps. Needy's face was frozen because she knew as well as I did that my boyfriend was checking in on me. Before my phone diverted to voice mail, I lunged for my handbag that was on the armchair across from where I was sitting, almost crashing into Needy who ducked swiftly. Rummaging through my bag, I quickly pulled out my phone and brought it to my ear.

"Felix?" I covered up my nerves. I had been acting so nonchalant about keeping Needy a secret that I didn't realize how totally fucked up it was that I was cheating on the owner of a geothermal plant corporation with a _woman_.

"_Expecting someone else?"_

"No, no, of course not. How's the trip?" I tucked my hair behind my ear and made my way to Needy's bedroom.

"_We just arrived here at Victoria, Seychelles. It's amazing out here, babe, I wish you were here with me."_

I sat on the edge of her bed and sank into the comforter. Now, I just felt extremely guilty that I was afraid of saying anything else. But I had to keep my guard up. Needy had quietly padded into the room and leaned against the door, looking at me.

"_Babe? Still there?"_

"Yeah, I miss you too. I can't wait 'til you get back." Needy and I had locked eyes. I had to think quickly because right now, Needy was make her way towards me, causing me to move further up the bed. What was she up to? She had a devilish glint in her eyes, as she ran her hands up my bare legs.

"_Aww. Are you having fun, though?"_

Yes. Having so much fun without you. By now, Needy had her fingers hooked into the waistband of my cotton girl-shorts. I couldn't believe her! She was going to go down on me during this possibly life-threatening situation? I gave her an angry look but she continued to smile mischievously at me as she pulled my underwear down. I couldn't fight her off or else Felix would hear the scuffling.

"Uhm, yeah I guess. Nee-Anita and I watched a couple movies last night. Pretty bomb." I had to keep up with the lies or else he would see, or rather, _hear_ through them.

He chuckled at my sarcasm. Needy had spread my legs and settled herself at the juncture between them, blowing lightly on my heated mound. I had to bite my lip to keep from making a sound.

"_Where _is_ Anita, anyway?"_

In between my legs.

"_Raf wants to check in with her, too."_

I felt a soft, wet instrument probing my folds and tickling my clit causing me to shudder. Closing my eyes I gripped the phone tighter to my ear and prayed to God that I wouldn't give myself away—or have Needy stop. Right now, her ministrations were clouding my better judgment. She bit lightly on my sensitive nub and I arched my back as my eyes shot open, my mouth hung open in a soundless cry.

"W-well, she's in the kitchen making something. I'll tell her to c-call Rafael, later." My other hand gripped Needy's hair and pressed her closer to me.

"_Yeah, okay. Babe, are you alright?"_

I couldn't respond just yet because Needy had just stuck two fingers into me and I brought the phone away from my ear so that I could at least croak out a tiny moan. I clutched Needy's hair alternating between pushing and pulling her from me enough so that my skin wouldn't explode with the pleasure coursing through my hot blood.

"Needs, stop," I whispered. "Ungh, wait, don't stop." Her fingers had just brazed a very sensitive spot that had me bucking my hips shamelessly towards her. I almost forgot about Felix, but I shakily brought the phone back to my ear.

"_Babe? What's going on?"_

"I-uh, listen baby, I have to go. Needy and I are going out right now."

"_Needy? I thought you said she was in the kitchen."_

Shit. I was losing it. I was so close, and bursting with pent up sexual frustration but Needy wouldn't stop. In fact, she quickened her movements and latched her lips onto my clit, sucking hard.

"Oh uh, well, she's done now. Okay, I've got to go." _Come._ I hit the 'end call' button and slammed my phone to the bed, gripping the sheets as I did so.

"Fuck, Needy!" I called out as my orgasm washed over me. I let out a long moan as the familiar waves of pleasure rushed through my veins and clouded my vision for a while. She let go of my clit, allowing me to come down from my high but didn't remove her fingers from me until my body stopped jerking. She crawled up the bed, lovingly placing kisses all over my body. My mouth was open; I couldn't stop panting. She captured my lips with hers and collapsed beside me. When my proper senses flooded back into my mind, I suddenly felt angry.

"What the fuck did you do that for? You could've killed us both!" I leaned on my side as I stared at her. She laughed.

"Jeez. Keep your panties on. On second thought, don't. I was only getting back at you for all your naughty flirting all day." She cocked her brow at me. Well, she had a point.

"Huh. Serves me right then, I guess." I pretended to look guilty about it.

But at that moment, I felt that I didn't have to feel guilty about anything.

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**Well that was a fun-filled chapter. The star-crossed lovers are so close to being exposed. How much longer before their secret love affair is discovered? Okay, this isn't Romeo and Juliet but you get the point, so review! (=**


	8. Miracle!

**A full week! That's so unforgivable and like I said before, the angst is back, people. Ye be warned. I just can't help myself! This is written in Needy's POV.**

**I want to take this time to thank all my faithful readers and reviewers such as Melanie Kisaragi, Mizzle fo' Rizzle, Lubov, and Avarenda. And of course all the new readers who have taken their time to read this humble fic. I seriously love you all (=**

**I'm not going **  
** 'Cause I've been waiting for a miracle**  
** And I'm not leaving**  
** I won't let you**  
** Let you give up on a miracle**  
** When it might save you**

**~Paramore - Miracle!~**

**Disclaim, disclaim, disclaim...

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"So are we lesbians or what?"

It was about midmorning and the sun was already shining high in the sky. Jennifer and I camped out in the spacious living room, preferring the large romping space on the floor that existed once the coffee table was pushed out of the way. I was sitting against the foot of the couch with Jennifer curled up beside me, leaning her head against the juncture between my shoulder and chest. Every time she laughed or craned her head, her luscious hair would tickle me and send shivers up my spine. I knew deep down that I would never get tired of the sensation of her body against mine.

I had only asked the question for the hell of it because we both knew that we loved each other, but there was still the underlying guilt of betraying our boyfriends. We were all caught up in this twisted game of fate; our boyfriends were the poorest victims. In spite of that, there wasn't anything we could do about the obvious attraction between us and our bond only seemed to strengthen the more time we spent with each other. Moreover, I didn't really like the whole labeling idea because to me there was just Jennifer and Needy and nothing or no one else. But I knew that she was just as confused as I had been.

"Hmm, lesbians…" her voice trailed as I perceived her to be deep in thought. What I noticed about her, the whole week that we had been together was that whenever she was thinking really hard, she would always fiddle with something—may it be a lock of her hair, tangling and disentangling her fingers, or something of the sorts. Now, she was playing with my fingertips that were resting on my stomach.

She traced the length of each of my fingers before pressing a gentle kiss onto the inside of my wrist. The simple gesture warmed my heart and challenged me to cry because I just couldn't keep my emotions in check. I was falling faster and faster for her, and I hoped that she felt it, too. Then she looked up at me with conviction twinkling in her eyes.

"We're _lesbigays_!" She exclaimed, giggling.

"What?" I'd never heard the term before, but she was smiling as if remembering something from the past.

"I had this classmate before who kept calling girls _lesbigays_, shouting it in the hallways until a teacher finally shut her up."

"Did she ever call you one?" I was curious to know if Jennifer's gender inclination dated back to way back when. Not that I was _jealous_ or anything, I just wanted to know.

"Never. She always used it on the girls on the sports team and occasionally on the people in the nerd herds. Thankfully, I was neither." She smiled triumphantly. "Why did you ask?" There was a mischievous tone to her voice, but I shrugged it off.

"Oh, nothing. I was just curious that's all." I tucked a lock of hair behind her ear, hoping to change the subject somehow.

"You aren't jealous or anything, are you?" She asked. "Because you know, there was a whole line of girls chasing after me but I never paid them any attention." Jennifer was baiting me on purpose and to my defeat, it was working pretty well.

"Yeah, I bet you were quite the popular heartthrob in high school, huh?" I cringed visibly, playfully letting her know that I _did_ actually care about when she came out. I realized though, that it had happened only with me.

"I wasn't really much of anything in high school, actually." Jennifer glanced away and I could feel the familiar blockade making its way between us. Her smile had faded from her lips and was replaced with the sullen weight of her past.

"Jennifer, I want you to know that you can tell me anything." I needed to sound convincing or else she would be afraid, and that was the last thing that I wanted her to feel when she was with me.

"I don't know. It's just that, ever since my dad left I've felt a little, I don't know..._reclusive_? He was like a really big part of my life and I thought that everything was going fine until I heard the shouting that one morning." Her eyes were cast far away and I knew that she was painfully reliving the scene in her head. I stayed quiet to let her know that I was still listening and was encouraging her to continue.

"The only good thing I can get from him leaving was me discovering my skills in painting and drawing," she shook her head as if still doubting her great potential as an artist, "but then I would have realized that in the long run anyway. It was as if I had to do everything the hard way, 'cause my mom was like this fucking chronic alcoholic who never seemed to get better and never even tried. I had to take care of myself but I couldn't even do that because I was taking care of my mom." Her voice was breaking and my heart was reciprocating those emotions because it hurt me so much to hear Jennifer having such a terrible past. She didn't deserve to have been torn into pieces like that because I knew that she was a naturally good person.

"And then I just sort of…disappeared. I guess it was because I spent so much time on other people that I somehow forgot myself. Like, I was a different person everyday with no real dreams in mind, or a face to put out for when I met people."

"But then you met Felix." I added curtly, trying to sound as neutral as possible but there really was something about that man that struck me as, well, _evil._

"Yeah, and I thought that I had found my place with him." Jennifer lifted herself from where she was leaning on my body and twisted around to face me properly. "But I don't care about him now." I continued to stare at her with my tear-filled eyes until I felt all the emotions set in. When did I become such a crybaby?

Rolling my eyes, I said, "Okay, God, all this drama is getting to me."

She laughed accordingly, and her eyes twinkled at mine. She reached up and traced the outline of my face with her fingertip as if her mind was still elsewhere and not with me at that moment.

"Where are you?" I asked quietly as my hands absently stroked her smooth arms.

She sighed.

"They're coming back soon." Her brow furrowed as if it was physically difficult to mutter those words. My heart clenched as the realization dawned over me. I didn't want any of what we had shared over the past few days to just disappear because then I would feel a little part of me die as well. There wasn't anything either of us could do about them coming back except hope that we would be able to relive our little fucked up fairy tale in the event that we would see each other again. It was highly unlikely. Suddenly, I felt so constricted and time-pressured to spend absolutely every second with the person that I truly loved.

"I'm still going to see you, though. There really isn't anything to worry about." I couldn't believe that I had just said that. I had meant to be cajoling and understanding but the words tasted wrong in my mouth. There was _everything_ to worry about when they would come back. These were the times that I wished we had never fallen in love with each other. At least then, we'd both be in less pain but I always reminded myself that loving her was worth every agonizing beat of my heart against the imminent ticking of time.

After a while, we moved up to the couch where it was my turn to lie on her body. Her breathing was so even that I thought she had fallen asleep until I heard her whisper something against my hair.

"Our life is like Bridge to Terabithia."

I raised my head and looked up to her. "The movie or the book?"

"Either or both." She started playing with the ends of my hair. "We're going to have to create our own little world together to be happy—hiding from everybody else. That's our happy ending." Though her words were enlightening and soothing, she sounded unhappy, like she didn't really mean any of what she was saying.

"Jen, Leslie dies in that story. That isn't going to happen to us. We _will_ get our real happy ending."

"Yeah, but anything can happen."

At her pain-stricken words, I placed a sympathetic kiss to her chest. I felt her hands reach into my hair and tug my head forward where she kissed me fully on the lips. I shifted the weight of my body so that it settled evenly on the lower half of our bodies as I leaned up on my elbows. We kissed languidly, in no rush to take each other to utopian heights, knowing that we had so little time to memorize every bit of each other's body.

By now though, we had learned each other's bodies well enough to know exactly which spots caused long moans to erupt from our throats or what part of our skin, when lightly traced, caused goosebumps to rise all over our bodies. Running my hands over her body was like playing an instrument that I learned from when I was a child. It felt so natural to me and the thought of never being able to hold her as I did now felt utterly heartbreaking.

As our tongues slowly danced and our quiet whimpers mixed together, her hands ran down the length of my body and rested at my hips, causing my shirt to ride up a little to expose my abdomen. Her cold hands snaked around my waist, causing me to moan in her mouth. I broke away from her lips to give attention to her jaw line and neck, sucking lightly there and reveling in the mewling sounds she created.

"Why couldn't I have met you _before_ Felix?" She breathed, exhaling heavily as I began to lap at a very erogenous spot on her neck. Her hands tightened around my neck and her legs opened wider, nestling my hips into hers more firmly.

This was where I wanted to be for the rest of my life—surrounded by the warmth of Jennifer Check. I felt that even our very first encounter was a game played on us by fate. We may have been destined to fall in love, but in the most inconvenient time, place, and situation. I didn't know where our relationship was going to lead us, and I had a sick, sick feeling that it wasn't going to end well. But I had that last frayed shred of hope that we would make it through.

"What was that?" I vaguely heard Jennifer ask as I busied my hand with her breast.

"Serendipity." I hadn't realized that I said it aloud and I repeated myself for her to hear it again.

"We're more like that movie. A fortunate accident, don't you think?" I glanced up at her with every ounce of concentration that I could muster at the moment because my whole body was intending to ravish Jennifer's. Her eyes penetrated through mine intensely and I wondered if she knew just how powerful her eyes were. Her kiss-swollen lips were parted and I melted with desire when she tucked her bottom lip in between her teeth. I was past the point of all control and decency as I brought my hand down and stroked her through her clothes.

Her eyes rolled back into her head as her hands clutched desperately to my shoulders. She released her bottom lip from her teeth and strained against my body as my hand continued to pleasure her. Then she opened her eyes and placed her hand against my cheek, for some reason, that gesture caused me to stop my ministrations.

"Hey," she said weakly.

"Yeah?" I wondered what she'd wanted to say and waited patiently before making a snack out of her luscious body.

"W-we're going to be together, right Needs?" Insecurity flooded her eyes and I felt my heart bleed for her. I knew exactly what she meant. There was nothing certain in life but I wanted more than anything to live our Bridge-to-Terabithia ending even if it killed me. I hoped and prayed we would be together.

"Baby, we'll be together forever, yeah? I love you too much to let you go."

A low, guttural moan erupted from her throat and she leaned up to capture my lips. She wrapped her legs around me and bucked her hips against my hand that was spreading her warm essence all over her core. In further response, her fingers began to fondle my perked nipples through my shirt before she grasped them both under it. I felt goose bumps to rise all over my skin as her cold hands made contact with my body. A groan resounded through my chest and she kissed me harder as she felt it.

We were in the process of stripping each other right there on the couch when I faintly heard a knock on my front door. Both of our heads snapped up and looked at the door. Our hands were entangled with each other's bodies and when I heard a second rapping, I quickly removed myself from her body and attempted to make myself look more presentable. _Who could it be?_

"Shit," I muttered as I fumbled with my clothes._  
_

I readjusted my bra and pulled my shirt down before I re-buttoned my denim shorts. My breath was coming out in short pants and a light sheen of sweat broke out on my forehead. I didn't know why I was so nervous. It could've been anyone but something told me that behind that door was someone I knew. Jennifer also quietly fixed herself up.

I bolted to the door while smoothing out my hair and wrenched it open.

"Hi, honey! What took you so long? And why do you look so sweaty and…_ick_?" Standing in front of me was my foster mother with a basket covered with a pastel-colored cloth that I knew contained different types of bread. I hated it when she visited me unannounced and I hated it even _more_ that she visited right before I was about to go down on Jennifer. Fuck, I hated myself for getting into a situation like this.

_Jennifer._ Shit! She was here! Stephanie, my foster mother, didn't know about her and it might be hard to explain it to her. I hoped that I would be able to lie convincingly (a fucking lost cause) enough for her not to pay any attention to Jennifer (thought it seemed impossible. Jennifer is gorgeous). Then again, the quiet, collected side of me whispered that I might be exaggerating too much.

"Anita, aren't you going to invite me in?" My mom asked expectantly but with a smile on her face._ Good, she's in a happy mood._

I blinked out of my internal warfare and gave her a warm hug. I realized that despite the stress that I had in my life right now, there was still the same feeling of security and love that I felt radiate from my mother's hug. She was always as annoying as hell but I knew that I owed her enough because she raised me well enough to her capacity.

"Good to see you, Mom." I said, pulling away from her so that she could enter the apartment. My heartbeat was still going at a rapid pace even as we paced into the living room. Thankfully, Jennifer looked decent enough (but she's never _just_ decent in her stunning beauty). She looked serene and subdued standing beside the couch as if she were waiting for my mom to arrive. When she saw us coming into the living room, she beamed brightly and she looked so young and innocent in her perfect smile.

"Hi, you must be Mrs. Lesnicky. I'm Jennifer Check, Anita's _friend_." She strode towards my stricken mother and held out her hand. It dawned on me that Jennifer was playing the sexy yet totally innocent girl in an attempt to divert my mom's attention towards her and less on me. How did she know that I didn't like my mother's attention?

After an infinitesimal blackout, Stephanie shook Jennifer's hand. She seemed to have surveyed the coffee table pushed to the side, the pillows all over the floor, and blankets and sheets spread around. "Nice to meet you, Ms. Check."

"Please, call me Jennifer." She genuinely looked self-conscious for a fleeting moment before she regained her composure. "It's so coincidental that you would drop by with me sleeping over here, Mrs. Lesnicky."

"Where's Rafael?" She addressed the question to the both of us but Jennifer glanced at me, knowing that I had to answer.

"Felix and him went somewhere in the Pacific on business." I answered curtly. I didn't intend to sound mean but the tensions building up inside were messing with my mind. "Uhm, do you need help with the bread, Mom?"

"Yes, as a matter of fact, I was just going to ask you to come with me." She spoke the last words in the tone that was encoded in the genetic code of all mothers. Even at twenty-three, I felt my throat close up a little as dominant-mother reigned in on me. I always had authority issues. As she started walking towards the kitchen, I looked back at Jennifer whose face was carefully calm. She shrugged indifferently, turning away from me and plopping onto the couch to switch the TV on.

Reluctantly, I trudged after my mother into the kitchen, and then sat atop one of the counters, watching her put away the basket of bread. She turned around to me and surveyed me like I was a neglected experiment that she remembered to check up on. Maybe I was.

"What's up, Mom?" I asked _a la_ Bugs Bunny. God, there was something fucking wrong with me. I was so over-the-fucking-top.

"So where did you meet Jennifer?" She crossed her arms in front of her chest. I knew that she meant to sound nonchalant but I was I afraid that she was suspecting something.

"She's Felix's girlfriend. Look, she came over because Felix told her that he would feel better knowing that she wasn't alone in their apartment. I was feeling pretty lonely too so I let her stay the week." I felt so much like a pathological liar that I didn't know how much of what I just said was the truth.

"Okay, okay. Why do you sound so defensive? You know me: I just wanted to check in with you. I feel like I hardly know you anymore, sweetie." I hated it when she pulled the puppy-eyed trick on me. I felt guilty and dirty. Here was my mother in my kitchen, oblivious to the fact that I was a _lesbigay_ who was about to have sex with my fellow lesbian lover. I was tempted to tell her flat out about Jennifer and how much I wanted to scream at the top of my lungs how much I loved her, but I figured that this was part of the whole finding-the-soul-mate package. Keeping her a secret was the price to pay for falling in love with her. As a side thought, I knew that I still had to break up with my boyfriend one way or the other. Oh, life…

"Mom, I missed you too. But the unannounced visits and the whole basket of bread thing," I made a little exasperated sound, "it just has to stop, Mom. I came out here to make a living for myself and I need you to stop babying me. I'll always love you but, seriously, I'm grown up now." I pushed off of the counter and hugged her. When I pulled away, I noticed that her eyes were glassy.

"I know, baby. I just wish you'd call more often."

"I will next time." I promised. Inside, my stomach was doing somersaults because I was glad that the topic had finally changed.

She wiped her nose with a handkerchief. "Well, I'd better get going. I know I'm raining in on your little slumber party." She chuckled to herself and I forcibly swallowed hard. We hugged again, this time more tightly. I had to admit that I really did miss her. She would never be like the mother who gave me life but she was the mother who taught me how to live it.

"Say, that's some really good perfume," Stephanie said while hugging me.

"Hmm?" I intelligently replied. I broke away and quickly smelled my hair, immediately remembering that Jennifer had been all over me the whole day.

"The perfume? Where'd you get it?"

"Oh, well," I stammered. "Rafael likes giving me stuff when he comes back from long trips. Sort of like a peace offering for being away for so long."

"Oh, I see. Well, it smells wonderful." For some reason, that made my heart leap.

We walked back through the living room where Jennifer was still watching TV. Her back was still to me so I couldn't tell.

"Bye, Jennifer. It was nice meeting you." My mother called out.

Jennifer turned her head slightly and smiled, nodding good bye to my mother, apparently avoiding my eyes.

I escorted her to the door, letting out the breath that I had been holding from the moment I opened the door. Back in the living room, Jennifer had switched the television off and begun to collect her stuff.

"What are you doing?" I feared another walk out when she didn't answer me and continued to gather her belongings. I gawked stupidly at her as she shoved clothes into her duffel bag.

"Where the fuck is my toothbrush?" I heard her mutter.

When she had finally packed everything, she hung the duffel bag on her shoulder and started for the door. I blocked her way and held her at arm's length. Her eyes had been downcast so when I forced her to look at me, I was shocked by the tears that had pooled there.

"This isn't going to work out after all," she whispered.

"What the fuck are you talking about? What about all the things we promised to each other?"

She shook her head in defeat, causing some tears to fall. "This is crazy, Needy. I realized how much we can't be together. I need to stay with Felix." Her masked expression was struggling with the emotions her heart was throwing at her and I wondered why she was giving up.

"You don't know what you're talking about. You're just scared. I am too. Please, just _please_ stay?" My voice broke off and at the sound of it, Jennifer tried to push me away but I held her firmly on the shoulders as I forced her to the wall where she wouldn't be able to escape. She'd dropped her bag and now, her expression was so forlorn that she looked utterly helpless, drowning in the sea of conflicting emotions that she had never dealt with before.

"This isn't right, Needy. It's stupid. I-I love you, but we just can't be together, okay?" She was struggling to make me understand what she was saying but I was beginning to feel numb with rejection.

"You can't actually believe all that you're saying—,"

"Just fucking listen to me, Needy! I can't handle this, and I-I'll be unfit for you." _Unfit?_

"So this is what it boils down to?" My heart had taken enough battering and I pushed away from her slowly, trailing my fingers down her arms. "Haven't you already realized that I _accept_ you? For everything you are and aren't?" I whispered brokenly.

She was unsuccessful in trying to muffle her sobs; they were all I could hear. My world felt turned inside out. I looked at Jennifer with my pained eyes and she grasped my face in her hands with her fingers pressing desperately into my cheeks. She brought her forehead against mine with our lips at a breath's distance from each other. I didn't have the strength to push her away nor to bring her any closer because I felt my world turn inside out; my heart was wrenched out of my chest. She parted her lips, brushing her top lip against mine and I realized that she had wanted to kiss me but didn't want what it would lead to. We were both fighting our own inner battles as we clutched desperately together.

What seemed like an eternity was quickly snuffed out like a small candle's flame as she swiftly maneuvered herself out of my grip and grabbed her duffel bag, wiping at her angry tears. She didn't turn back to see me stunned out of my body and mind, leaning against the wall. I couldn't move. I heard her walk along the hallway leading to the front door and for the second time that I've had to endure it, she walked out of my life.

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**I know what you're thinking, haven't they been through enough? Well, I'm so twisted that I can't let anyone have a happy ending!...yet. (= Please review!**


	9. We are Broken

**Back with another chapter! Jen's POV and it picks up where she left Needy's house after her stepmother visited. The whole angst theme seems to be going a little bit dry, i know some of you might be thinking but please bear in mind that that IS the central theme of this story and it begins to move along here anyway. In fact, the story is almost at its end. Around six more chapters actually. =c**

**My mouth is dry**  
**With words I cannot verbalize**  
**Tell me why we live like this**

**'Cause we are broken**  
**What must we do to restore our innocence?**

**~Paramore - We are Broken**~

**Disclaim, disclaim, disclaim...

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I could just totally kill myself right now. At least once, I thought that my life had finally given me some peace when it gave me Needy. Funny, how a knock on the door becomes an ominous euphemism for my life's fuck up.

There's really no explaining what made me come out of the water and return to the hard, dry land. Maybe it was the veracity of the situation. Her mother's visit switched the light back on in my head and made me see the stupidity of everything that we—that _I_ was doing. Bridge to Terabithia didn't exist. Couldn't exist.

Then there was the pain. The moment I ran to the door, my insides set so heavily in my body and I felt myself sinking into the darkest part of me, having no strength to pull myself out. For the whole week, I was with Needy alone and I was so absorbed in her that I forgot about everything else. Mrs. Lesnicky was the wake-up call that I didn't want to get out of bed for and risk shattering the dream I was living in. I'm so much more fragile now. I couldn't even bear to kiss Needy good bye or else I wouldn't have been able to haul myself out of her apartment. My body was running on auto-pilot the whole time because my heart was screaming at me that I should stay and be with Needy while my fucking mind commanded that I get a hold of myself and be practical and realistic.

It had taken all my power and energy to pretend that I was calm and collected when I met Needy's mother. I had to replace my dusty, old façade that I hadn't put on in days because being with Needy made me feel safe enough to remove it. With her mother there, I couldn't jeopardize the secret that we shared. That was another reason why Needy and I wouldn't be able to be together in the end. Our relationship would have to be a secret even if we broke up with our boyfriends because the mere thought of Felix finding out that I had left him for a woman was too terrifying to imagine. Neither of us would make it out alive, so what I did was noble, right? I was saving both myself and Needy from having to face the wrath of Felix. And the rest of the world.

After I ran out of Needy's apartment, I was lucky to have even remembered to bring the keys to my car and drive myself safely home. I gripped the steering wheel until my fingernails dug into my skin and I bit my lip hard enough to keep the tears at bay until I parked the car. Then I let it all out. I didn't know how long I had wept inside my car but I had stayed in there until horizontal rays of orange sunlight began slicing through the windshield. It took me time to collect myself because I just felt so numb. My body had taken quite a beating with my rollercoaster of emotions thrumming through my system, until the pain had resolved into a dim ache in the back of my head.

Resolutely, I climbed out of the car. Because I was wearing a thin wife beater and old denim shorts, the afternoon cold shot right through my body, reviving and stimulating my mind. Being inside the stuffy car for so long was a stupid move; the chilly breeze felt nice, calming. I deeply inhaled the sharp, stinging air before hauling my duffel bag from the trunk. Feeling so alone, I sullenly ambled towards the apartment building.

Once I had managed to unlock the front door to my apartment, I was immediately aware of how _empty_ it was. Not in the physical sense, but in the intangible, silent sense of something that should have been but was not there. I surveyed the flat, noticing it to be the same way it had always been though oddly different. Had the paint tone of the apartment always been a dull combination of black and white? Where were the easy, relaxed furniture that had always looked worn with age yet extremely comfortable? Had the place always been decorated in such a minimalistic way? With a pang in my heart, I realized that I had been dredging the _Needy_ in everything. My Needy was warm and welcoming, vibrant and light, and always had the 'homey feel' to her. Wherever she was, I felt at home. In this stolid, rigid place, I felt so small and lonely, immediately missing Needy.

Reluctantly, I put away my luggage in the master bedroom. I changed into some more comfortable and warmer clothes, not bothering to raise the centralized temperature of the flat. As much as possible, I wanted to _not_ touch any of the things in the apartment because I had still felt Needy's warm skin against mine, covering me with a light blanket of haven. Touching objects that did not hold the same effervescence of Needy's soul would only cause this temporary high to abate into the crevices of my mind. I couldn't afford to lose that feeling lest my sanity would go with it.

Hoping to preserve the imbalanced state that I was in, I dug into Felix's liquor cabinet in search of some strong alcohol that might help induce a relative state of mind paused in the tracks of time. I didn't want to let anything go because I knew I would be washed away and then there would be nothing left. My façade was broken and my soul was leaking through.

A bottle of tequila, two-thirds full, was the first drink that I found. My body didn't cope so well with Jose Cuervo but it was the best chance that I had right now. If only I had some pot then maybe a couple of joints would do me good, but then again, alcohol had this slow, painful process of inebriation that I was hoping for.

Retrieving a glass cup that I doubted I would use anyway; I trudged into the living room and sank into the cold leather couch. I opened the bottle and sniffed the contents. Knowing that I was going to regret this later on, I shut my eyes tight and took a long swig of the vile substance, letting it sear my insides until everything felt so numb.

-oOo-

Truth be told, my mind wasn't planning on waking up at all, but my body clock insisted it. I didn't know what time it was but from the stiffness of my muscles, I could tell that I'd been out for more than twelve hours. Crap.

I took a chance and opened one eye. I didn't know what I was expecting to see but my heart sunk a little bit when I realized that I was still all alone. Getting up from where I was sprawled on the couch was a battle I didn't win because as soon as I craned my neck forward, my stomach lurched and my head throbbed painfully.

"Holy shit," I groaned as the remnants of the Cuervo swished in my stomach, making me feel extremely nauseated. I tried taking deep breaths to get oxygen to my brain and it helped me a little bit. My vision was still blurry from my long slumber; I extended my arms outwards, grasping for something, anything that would help me escape the stupidity of my actions. My hand landed on something rough and crinkly. I opened my eyes and it was a sketch page torn off of my pad.

Squinting at it, I realized that it was a copy of the painting that I was working on only that it wasn't finished. Then I understood that in my drunken-high state, I would always find a way to draw or paint. Sometimes, I would only be able to produce quality work in this condition. I didn't consider myself to be an alcoholic at all, but I still amazed myself whenever I did this.

Slowly, I looked around. The living room floor was cluttered with papers with various pictures drawn on them. Some were torn or crumpled and some had tear stains on them. As I took in my surroundings, my head continued to throb mercilessly so I willed myself to crawl out of the living room (because I couldn't balance myself on my own two feet) in search for pain medication. I brought myself to the bathroom and rummaged through the medicine cabinet. Luckily, it was fully-stocked with bottles of Advil, Aleve, Tylenol, and other branded pain killers that Felix frequently used.

I popped the lid off of the Tylenol bottle and downed two pills, washing it down with water from the faucet. The cold rush of water immediately soothed my face as I splashed a little on my skin and on the back of my neck. I propped up my hands on the sides of the metal sink thinking about the stuff that I had to do.

Before Felix would come home, I would have to tidy up the apartment. It was rarely ever dirty or unorganized but Felix was a meticulous man. I knew that I had to start with the living room mess. I would burn all evidence of my one-woman party. Everywhere else was basically clean but I'd vacuum the place nonetheless. Realizing how much time I had left, I quickly exited the bathroom, tying my hair up along the way. I vaguely wondered why I hadn't even felt like throwing up before my stomach lurched and I ran back inside, dove for the toilet and emptied myself of what I prayed to be everything inside.

-oOo-

Two hours, one more disgusting flush of the toilet, and a garbage bag filled with charred papers later, I plopped onto the leather sofa once more, fresh out of the shower and completely satisfied with my work despite the killer hangover I was still suffering from.

"I'm never drinking again," I whispered to myself before I closed my eyes, hoping to take a quick nap before Felix arrived.

-oOo-

Sometimes, there's a moment in sleep when a person jolts back into consciousness because of the feeling of falling off a cliff. Some people say that in that moment, angels are trying to take your soul. Well, I was already deeply and comfortably asleep when my breath caught in my throat and my arms were sent flailing in front of me as my eyes shot open. I don't remember what I was dreaming about but right before I woke up, I imagined myself falling into a dark abyss.

I realized that an insistent rapping on the front door woke me up and I furrowed my brow in confusion. If it were Felix at the door, he would've just entered using his key. I didn't know anybody to expect so I moved cautiously to the door, peeking into the peep hole. Memories of yesterday came flooding into my mind as I took in the image of Needy waiting anxiously behind the door. It was like a stab to my already weak heart to see her with merely the four-inch thick door separating us. I realized that since last night, this was the first time that I had even thought about Needy. It seemed that my obvious subconscious plan of cleaning the house was the perfect distraction.

I contemplated on opening the door. How could she bear to see me after I had walked out on her yet again? I decided that I should just grow some balls (no pun intended) and find out. Thankful that she was _not_ soaking wet this time, I wrenched the door open, causing a few strands of my hair to swirl slightly around my neck. I didn't know what kind of expression was pasted on my face but however I looked like, it somehow caused Needy's eyes to widen considerably. God, okay, I know that I look like shit when I'm hung over.

Neither of us braved to be the first to speak and we were both caught in one of our staring contests. I willfully bore my eyes into Needy's hoping to find forgiveness in her eyes. I found more. In her beautiful, darkly amber eyes, I was enraptured in an embrace of love, security and overall trust. She had come to me not to find out why I had run out on her because she already knew that. She came to me knowing that _I_ didn't have the strength or courage to go back; that I relied on her to come and save me from what I realized now was wrong. Oh, so wrong.

"I'm going to ask you to leave," I hear myself say. Somehow, my sensible side was still working even amidst the cloud of emotional and alcoholic turmoil. My heart pounded against my words and my eyes fogged up knowing that the intensity of them would give me away.

For some reason, Needy simply smiled at me and took a step forward. "You don't want that." She sounded so sure of herself that caused me to doubt myself even more. I backed away from her, fully aware that my deteriorated boundaries were falling down once again.

She moved closer to me after shutting the door and locking it. I shook my head.

"I don't want you to touch me," I said, my voice breaking.

"Yes, you do." She extended her arms towards me and somehow my body didn't jerk away. The familiar sensation of her warm skin brushing against mine was fueling the beat of my heart, making me feel stronger and more secure.

"I don't want you to kiss me," I whispered, shaking my head brokenly. Tears had already begun to fall down my face as I desperately clutched Needy against me.

She didn't answer me back but instead sealed our lips together in a closed-mouth kiss that was both tender and heartbreaking. She understood the new boundaries now because Felix and Rafael would be home soon and we could be separated forever. But at least for these remaining moments, we would be together, cherishing the feeling of each other's souls tickling the frayed edges of our hearts. I didn't know how long this could last. I couldn't even continue the kiss because I broke down and cried into her shoulder. I squeezed her tightly as she held me while I cried.

"I'm sorry. I'm sorry," I repeated. I was apologizing for everything: for the pain I caused her for leaving, for the promises I knew I couldn't keep, and for falling in love with her in the first place. There was no certainty in us anymore.

"Shhh. Stop apologizing, dummy. This is my fault too." Her head was angled so that her face was buried into my hair. I knew that she was committing the scent of it to memory because neither she nor I knew when we would be able to hold each other like this again.

I could've held her like this forever, but everything had to come to an end eventually. As if fate had stepped in to ruin it all, I faintly heard a shuffling at the door and the unmistakable sound of a key being inserted into its hole. It was like the sound of death.

Just as soon as Needy pulled me into her, I had to push her away knowing that the door was mere seconds away from unveiling my hopefully-soon-to-be-ex-boyfriend. I tried to clean my face up as much as possible, wiping away any indication of the bitterness and sorrow that was beginning to build up inside. Needy did the same and attempted to look natural and cool but I could practically hear her heart pounding against her ribs. I gave her hand a quick squeeze before finally releasing it and moving towards the door that swung open.

"Hi, honey!" Felix exclaimed as he pushed through the threshold, lugging behind his heavy suitcases. Already, the bile was rising in my throat and I wanted nothing more than to take Needy's hand and run as far away as we could. Instead, I put on the brightest 'welcome home' smile I could muster on my sullen face and swung my arms around his neck, hugging him tightly to me.

"I missed you." I said while still clinging onto Felix. I closed my eyes and prayed that my voice didn't betray me. Unfortunately, my eyes did no justice as they let fall a steady stream of stubborn tears. I pulled back.

"Aww, Jen. Did you really miss me that much?" Felix put his luggage down and closed the door.

"Yeah, I guess so." I glanced at Needy who looked like she was on the verge of breaking down. Her eyes were slanted and cast a fiery gaze towards nothing and her lips were set in a grim line that made her look much older. I could easily tell that she was uncomfortable with me pretending to be happy that Felix was back, but I silently wished that Felix would remain ignorant of the lime- green warning bells that were ringing above Needy's head. I shot her a pleading look; did she want to kill us both?

"Anita! How are you? Did you take good care of my Jennifer?" He acknowledged Needy with a smile and wrapped a heavy arm around my shoulders. Needy didn't say anything in return but replied with a knowing smile and a nod.

Felix looked back and forth from us and the smile on his face was slowly fading as he took in the situation that happened prior to his arrival.

"What's going on?" Felix's voice was light but I sensed the undertone of suspicion. My heart began to pump blood in earnest as I thought of a quick lie.

"No, uh, Needy just came over to tell me some news about her new book proposal that was turned down. It…meant a lot to her and it must have gotten to me, too. Right, Needy?" I must have been seriously deranged to have come up with a pitiful excuse of a cover story. I seriously wanted to die.

"Yeah, I just felt so bad that I needed to tell somebody about it. Rafael wasn't home yet and Jennifer was the first person that I thought of." Needy had snapped out of her reverie and played along with my story.

"Oh. I'm sorry to hear about that, Anita. Hopefully, your next story is going to get published." Felix, having only arrived, must have felt too exhausted to comprehend the silent communication in Needy's and my eyes. He conceded interrogating either of us any further and retreated to the master bedroom to take a bath. After giving me a quick kiss, he left Needy and I alone in the hallway.

"Elie's probably waiting for me." We hadn't spoken since Felix had left so her voice had suddenly sounded so loud in my ears, scraping against my brain like etching in words that I didn't want to hear.

Instead of trying to fight the inevitable, I simply nodded my head, averting my eyes. My body and mind felt too fragile to allow jarring movements. I was hugging my chest tightly as if I could hold together my body at its broken seams. I couldn't even speak.

I felt Needy's unusually cold hand brush against my arm and then the feeling disappeared just as quickly and quietly as the front door closed quietly. The moment couldn't have been more symbolic for the complete, emotional shutdown that threatened the functionality of my body. I felt stone cold.

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**Please review! (=**


	10. Back at Your Door

**Two months is two months too long. A lot of personal things happened in those two months and I'm sorry I neglected this story, but I'm back on it now!**

**The lyrics to Back at Your Door are just so brilliant that I just had to put in the whole song. It's really good; one of Maroon 5's hits among their misses. (=**

**From the moment the lights went off**  
** Everything had changed**  
** Lie awake in an empty room**  
** In my head it all feels the same**

** Like the taste of the day you left**  
** That still lingers on my breath**  
** And the dampness of tears that left**  
** A stain where you had wept**

** All alone with the negligee**  
** That still hangs off of my bed**  
** I keep meaning to give it away**  
** But I just leave it there instead**

** No need to cry about it**  
** I cannot live without it**  
** Every time I wind up back at your door**

** Why do you do this to me?**  
** You penetrate right through me**  
** Every time I wind up back at your door**

** 3 more days 'til I see your face**  
** I'm afraid it's far too much**  
** Cook a meal and fix up the place**  
** Dial your number, hang it up**

** If I took you for granted**  
** I apologize for acting tough**  
** You're my reason for living**  
** And there's no way I'm giving up, oh**

** Now every evening is a bitter fight**  
** And I'm eating home alone on a Friday night**  
** I know what your friends say**  
** "You're just wasting your love and time"**  
** I will never let you change your mind**

** No need to cry about it**  
** I cannot live without it**  
** Every time I wind up back at your door**

** Why do you do this to me?**  
** You penetrate right through me**  
** Every time I wind up back at your door**

** Every time I wind up back at your door**

**~Maroon 5 - Back at Your Door~**

**Disclaim, disclaim, disclaim...

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**

It was déjà vu. The leaving, the pain, the running to her. All of it. Only this time, there was no reconciliation. I think that I had just made it worse by going to her apartment. It was the biggest risk I had ever taken because I knew that Felix and Rafael would be returning but I couldn't say no to what I was feeling anymore. I had to let my instincts take me to wherever they felt was right because taking a chance with Jennifer proved to be the best (and worst) thing that had ever happened to me. No more would I be a slave to the monotonous drive of my life. If I wanted to make the most out of it, whatever the consequences would be, I'd start taking all the risks I have to. We're all fucking doomed to die in the end anyway.

In spite of my newly found courage, facing Jennifer was still a big challenge. As soon as she swung the door open to me, I still found myself being drawn to her in an inexplicable way. She looked _awful_ to say the least, almost like she was dying but there was an innate sense of power resting in her eyes that couldn't become alive because of the pain in her heart. I hated that I was mostly to blame. She was crumbling in front of me but I couldn't put her together anymore because she would only push me away, weakening her even more. That, and the prospect of Felix coming home anytime soon.

Nonetheless, I forgave her for leaving me in the only way I knew how. She would grant me at least that, wouldn't she? Though her words were spiteful, there was no fire behind them. As much as she _had_ to have meant those words, she _couldn't_ and I perfectly understood that. Jennifer was like this injured, little animal that only _I _knew how to make better. Okay, maybe the analogy is a little messed up but I still feel protective around her. She's more fragile than anybody else would ever know and I'm both blessed and cursed to have known this.

I held her for as long as fate had allowed me before Felix had finally arrived. It was a silly feeling but the hair rose at my nape and I felt my blood instantly boil. A heavy feeling sunk into my stomach and I realized that I was feeling jealous. _Insanely_ jealous. The whole week was officially over and both of us would have to return to the normality of our lives. It could have been easy to let go of, like the memories of a great summer vacation or a happy family reunion, but both of our lives were so intertwined now that it would literally hurt to move with the other. It wasn't going to be easy to let go; I didn't know what I was going to do! We needed each other but there was just too much shit going on for either of us to continue this and I needed to see her one last time to make sure that what I was going to do was right.

Jennifer was basically the center of my life now and her happiness and safety were way before mine. If that meant that I couldn't be in the picture then I would have to let her go somehow. Felix would _kill_ her if he ever found out. Like she said, he never took rejection lightly and that basically meant that she was bound to him until his sick infatuated possessiveness of her faded. Neither of us would enjoy this kind of life but her life was more valuable than mine that I couldn't risk doing anything to jeopardize that.

Fuck. Is this what my life boiled down to? And is this what real love felt like? When I was a little girl, I had already imagined myself spending the rest of my life with the person I loved. Minus the fact that I'm up to my neck in deep shit and that I'm in love with a woman, and I can say that I've fulfilled my childhood fantasy.

"Elie's probably waiting for me." I don't know myself anymore to discover that even my voice had sounded so foreign to me. I didn't know anything else to say because I knew that I couldn't bear to actually say goodbye. My heart was pounding in my ears as I felt all the memories of being with Jennifer flood through my mind, taunting me of this undesired separation.

I hesitated to hold her once more but I might not have been able to let go so I merely brushed my hand against her arm to acknowledge my departure, and sped out of the door as quickly as possible before I would make any wrong decisions. There wasn't anything left inside of me to heave out; I felt numb and almost callous as the raw wounds of my heart began to ice over.

Once I got to my car, I flipped out my phone and dialed Felix's number in. He might have been looking for me. After three rings, he answered the phone.

"_Hey, _Chiquita,_ where are you?"_

His familiar voice was almost enough to put me at ease. Hearing him through the phone was enough to make me feel not so incredibly as lonely as I felt. After all, he'd become one of my closest friends before we got into a serious relationship. As familiarity settled in, I realized how _evil_ I was to Felix. He had been nothing but caring and understanding and I fucked him over. I didn't want him to forgive me. Hell, I didn't want to forgive myself.

"Just stopped by at Jen's for a minute. Did you just get home?"

"_Yeah, I'm so tired. What time are you coming home?"_

I realized how much I had missed Felix but I couldn't bear to see him yet. The treacherous feelings of guilt and shame crept into my heart and I shook my head, trying to make sense of anything at all.

"Yeah, uhm, I'll be home in a bit."

"_Well, okay. I miss you already, Anita. Don't stay out too long."_ He must have sensed the half-truth in my voice because there was a combination of worry and suspicion in his.

"I love you, Rafael." And I meant it.

"Te amo_, babe. Oh, could you do me a favor and maybe get me some Dr. Pepper?"_

Dr. Pepper was Rafael's favorite drink. As in, he had to have it at least once a day. He probably already drank whatever was left and I neglected to buy more for him for when he came back. I was such a bad girlfriend.

"Oh, right. I'm sorry; I totally spaced out on grocery shopping. I'll pick some up on the way home, okay?"

"'_Kay. I might be asleep by the time you get home, though."_

Good. At least I wouldn't have to face him right away when I got there. "Sure, honey. You need to rest. You can tell me about your trip when you wake up."

Click. I put my phone away and started the engine, warming it up before I accelerated out of the parking lot.

-oOo-

After stopping at the nearest convenience store, I drove around until my eyes finally flooded over and my hands shivered uncontrollably. I had to pull over on the side of the road before I became a real hazard to the other cars whizzing past me. In the driver's seat of my car, along the road of God knows here, I exploded into a million, tiny droplets of my weathered soul. I just felt so tired all of the sudden. I needed to close my eyes and sleep for a while but I was afraid that if I wake up, then _everything_ would just be a dream. My face felt so hot and my salty tears seared my skin even more. I was definitely losing it.

Months could have passed before I felt myself ready enough to get back on the road. The sun was already resting on a billow of low clouds and its weary rays caressed the side of my face as if assuring me that life would get better. Eventually the sun sank deeper into the earth and I had to switch my headlights on. Vaguely, I realized that Rafael would be mad at me for coming home late but I could care less about anything.

Soon, I was pulling into the dark parking lot lit by close-to-burning-out tungsten lamps. The chilly February air instantly pierced through my skin and I hugged my denim jacket closer to me in futile efforts. God, why did I feel so alone? Almost afraid of the darkness, I walked briskly into the building, fumbling with my keys as I got up to my door. It opened with a creak; the only light I saw came from the small pilot lights in the kitchen.

I crept inside my room and Rafael was already sprawled on his side of the bed, snoring lightly in his exhaustion. He looked so peaceful though and I knew that I'd give anything to have even an inch of what he was feeling—a blissful silence flooding my system, enough to allow my crazy thoughts to settle into the corners of my mind. As soon as I fully registered his sleeping form, I felt sleepy enough to remain unconscious for a few hours. I kicked my shoes off and threw my shirt and pants into the clothes basket before washing my face and brushing my teeth. Crawling into bed, I kissed Rafael on the cheek and brought the comforter over my shoulders, succumbing to the weight of darkness pressing over me.

-oOo-

I don't usually dream but that night was an exception. I would've kicked myself off the bed if Rafael hadn't woken me up. I was thrashing under the covers before I felt large hands grasping my shoulders, only causing me to panic and thrash even more.

"Anita! Baby, wake up. You're only dreaming." A familiar voice poured into the darkness that I was seeing and then I finally opened my eyes. I didn't realize I was screaming until my eyes shot open and my ears were filled with a deafening silence. I was breathing heavily; my hair was tangled around my neck and sweat plastered it to me skin.

"Elie?" I started crying but I didn't know why.

"I'm here. It's okay," he softly cooed while wiping my hair from my face. I clutched him against me and silently cried into his shoulder. We held each other like this until my breathing returned to normal.

"I'm sorry I woke you." I whispered against his skin.

He chuckled. "I woke up thinking there was a burglar in the house. Do you feel better now?"

"Yeah, I do." I released him from my arms to look at him. He still looked incredibly tired and I wondered what Felix had him do whilst they were gone.

"What did you dream about? You've never had a bad dream like this before. Hell, you've never had a bad dream that I can remember." He gently brushed my hair away from my face and I felt myself relax more.

I looked away, attempting to gather the thoughts swimming around in my head. Concentrating hard, I retold my dream.

"Well, now that I remember it, it sounds pretty stupid. I was in a coffee shop, sitting down on a really comfortable armchair. There weren't a lot of people in because it was raining really hard outside and it was freaking cold." I paused to make sure that Rafael was still listening.

"Then I ordered a café Americano with an extra shot of espresso like I always order, but then the barista lady wouldn't give it to me. She gave me something else. It smelled disgusting! Like gasoline or something. I kept asking for my drink but she kept forcing the cup of gasoline into my hand. Then suddenly everything went dark and I wasn't at the coffee shop anymore. The barista was still there with the gasoline only this time she had rope with her, too. I tried to run away but she caught me and tied the rope around. Then she pried my mouth open and poured the gasoline into my mouth." I absently ran my fingers along the column of my throat as if I really had drunken the poison.

"I kept trying to kick her away but she kept laughing at me. My mouth was full of gasoline and I couldn't breathe. Then I woke up."

"Maybe, you feel like you're being forced to do something that you really don't want to be doing right now." He spoke slowly, obviously lost in his own thoughts as he tried to interpret my dream. I hadn't thought of it that way. The consolidation of all my problems and issues was in the form of this dream. God, even my subconscious mind can't handle my life right now.

"I don't know," I said, and it was true. He had hit the nail on the head but that didn't make me feel any better about what I was feeling.

"Think hard about it. I don't really know what's going on with you but I'm here to help, okay? I'll be your own personal dream interpreter at all times of the night, if I have to be." He smiled reassuringly. Before all of this happened, his beautiful smile would have been enough to make me feel better. Now, it just makes me feel worse.

"You say that now but once you get back to work you won't be able to think about anything else." The mood had lightened considerably and I was re-tucking myself into bed.

"Oh, I'm hurt. How could you possibly think you aren't always on the forefront of my mind?" He clutched his chest, feigning a broken heart. _Because you aren't at the forefront of mine, _I had wanted to answer but now wasn't the time. It couldn't ever be the time.

"Oh, shut up. Go to sleep."

"What? No 'thank you, baby, for saving my life from an imaginary, rabid barista lady'?" He asked while switching the lamplight off.

"Thank you, baby, for saving my life from a rabid barista lady," I repeated what he said and the soft moonlight caught on his teeth in a Cheshire cat smile. I closed my eyes, wondering to myself why the lady had actually seemed so familiar.

When I woke up a few hours later, the last thing I remember thinking about was that the barista looked oddly like Felix.

-oOo-

Rafael went to work early to fix some paper work while I stayed home and rearranged the furniture yet again even though I didn't really feel like doing it. After assessing my work in the living room, I took a long, hot shower hoping to soothe the straining muscles in my back and shoulders. Though I wished that my bath would be party to two (keeping my thoughts away from her was almost physically impossible for me), I did my best to scrub down, inadvertently scrubbing hard into my skin as if gritting away all of my mistakes.

-oOo-

The phone rang.

I was in the kitchen attempting to cook lasagna like how Rafael loves his pasta. I was in the middle of mixing the cream when it rang. My hands were full of cheese bits and all-purpose cream that I decided to let it divert to voicemail.

"_Needy?"_

I almost let go of the mixing bowl that I was clutching against my stomach as I spun around and gawked at the phone. The red signaling light quivered as the voice over the line spoke meekly, defeated.

"_When you get this, please call me back. W-we need to talk ab—,"_

I slammed the bowl onto the kitchen counter and lunged for the phone.

"Jennifer?"

"_Oh, you're there."_ She said, though she didn't sound all too relieved.

"Yeah. What's going on? What happened after I left?" I couldn't stop the questions from spewing out of my mouth. I felt like an old muffler that continuously coughed up ugly, black smoke.

"_Nothing, really. Felix just told me about the trip, we had dinner, then we went to bed."_ She spoke the last few words as if there was more to what she had mentioned. I cringed as I realized what she had left out.

"Jen, why did you call?" I spoke slowly drawling out my words as if their meaning would be dignified by my emotions.

"_Needy, I-I don't think that this is going to work out. Felix, he, he's terrible when he's angry and—,"_

"I thought we decided that we were going to tell them together?" I was surprised that I had my voice. My head started hurting then, and the room started to slowly spin. I had to grip the phone tightly in my hand or I feared that I would waver away.

She audibly sighed. _"I'm so sorry, Needy. This can't happen anymore. Us. Please, I need you to understand." _She whispered brokenly as she pleaded.

"Did something happen, Jennifer? Talk to me." I gripped the phone tighter to my ear. She was asking me to understand but her voice didn't match her words. Her words said that we were over but her voice supplicated against them. I was on the verge of crying.

"_N-no. God, nothing happened, okay? We just can't see each other anymore. I can't let you get hurt over this."_ She whispered the last words and _then_ I understood everything. Being the misogynistic ass that he was, Felix would never have anybody tell him no. If and always, the ruthless business tycoon did the firing.

"I need to see you. Today." It was fucking cliché that we broke up over the phone because there isn't ever any closure doing it this way.

"_Needs, just let it go. I'll see you when I see you. G'bye."_

"Jen, wait!" But it was too late, she'd hung up.

I was in no fucking mood for this. If she wanted to break up with me, then she'd have to do it face to face. Resolutely, I turned the stove off in the kitchen leaving all the ingredients laid out as is, wiped the gunk off of my hands, and grabbed my jacket and keys. I didn't feel like I was thinking clearly about the situation but I couldn't stop myself.

Pushing the speed limit, I knew where I was headed off to. It didn't take me long to whiz by on the street and I was soon pulling my car into a parking slot of Jennifer's apartment. I was out of my mind but there was no going back from here. If I was going to Hell then I might just as well do it properly.

Two minutes later, I was at their apartment door. Raising my hand to knock, I felt my throat tighten.

"Come on, Lesnicky. You can do this." I whispered resolutely to myself as I rapped my knuckles onto the door.

There was shuffling and giggling behind the door before it opened. Clad in only boxers, Felix stood in the doorway looking surprised.

"Anita! What brings you here?" His hair was tousled and his chest and cheeks were tinged pink. I didn't need to guess twice about what they were doing before I came. _How could she?_

"Uhm,"

The door was opened wide enough to let me see Jennifer peeking out from across the hallway. She wore only a bathrobe and that made me sicker in my stomach.

I had to think quickly. Luckily, in my haste I had managed to bring with me my purse. Scanning the contents in my mind, I remembered that I had Jennifer's toothbrush in it. She had asked me to bring it the day we first made love and somehow, we both had forgotten about it. I quickly reached into my bag and retrieved it.

Almost immediately, I locked eyes with Jennifer. "She forgot her toothbrush."

Her expression changed morosely and she slowly shook her head. Trying to communicate with my eyes, I said _please don't do this to me._

"Oh, thank you, Anita." Felix broke our eye connection and I refocused myself on him again. He took the toothbrush from my hand and Jennifer came closer to him as he handed it to her.

"Anything else?" Felix looked at me expectantly as he wrapped an arm around Jennifer's waist. She looked away from me as he pulled her closer. I stared at her. There was no changing her mind anymore. She was shutting me out and I felt myself pull away from her as anger filled me.

"No, it's okay," I brought my eyes to Felix's. "I'm done here." I smiled at him but it felt more like a grimace.

He smiled back as he stepped back and closed the door. Through the sliver opening, I saw Jennifer angle towards me and open her mouth like she was going to say something but it was too late as the door closed; the space between us, established.

* * *

**I don't know how soon I can get you the next chapter but I promise that you guys are always on my mind! I'm determined to finish this story. (=**


	11. Gift from Virgo

**I'm BACK! no really, this is amazing. I've gotten around to finishing this chapter and I really hope you all like it. I'm going to stop talking now.**

**I wish I could look in your eyes**  
**And tell you how I feel **  
**Right now inside**  
**Baby I know that it's real**  
**So real so real, so real**  
**How I wish I could be with you**  
**How I wish I could be with you right now**

**When it's time for me to leave**  
**It's so hard to say good-bye**  
**I never want to say good-bye**  
**I never ever want to say good-bye**

**~Gift from Virgo - Beyonce~**

_**Disclaim, disclaim, disclaim...**_

_**

* * *

**_

Is it human nature to shy away from certain opportunities when they present themselves in precarious situations? Or is that just me? I had the chance to save my relationship with Needy before Felix closed the door, thereby symbolically severing all my ties with her. Actually, thinking back on it I didn't exactly know what it was that I was going to say to her. All I knew was that I wanted to get as far away from Felix as possible, sign up for a witness protection program, live under a new alias, and pray that he never ever found me. Wishful thinking, and all this on top of Needy's resentment of me. I was losing friends and alienating people. Well, the people that I _could_ alienate.

"That was weird," Felix said after closing the door. In spite of his height, he nuzzled into my neck by crouching as low as he could go. When I should have been clutching him closer, I found myself moving away from his grasp. I felt so disgusted with myself. He began trailing kisses along the column of my throat and I shivered—not out of pleasure but out of fear.

"Felix, stop," I whispered as calmly as I could without giving myself away by the quiver of my voice. I didn't want to have sex with him right after seeing Needy _again_. It made me feel like a common whore and that I was using sex as a means to escape. I was my own paying costumer. Last night had been a mistake. Instead of seeing Felix's body moving over me, I had tried to imagine that it was Needy pushing me closer to the cliff of ecstasy, her beautiful face replaced the sweaty, grunting face hovering my own.

"_Hey sweetie," Felix purred suggestively. I realized that despite the long trip, he must have been so anxious to fuck me when he got home. With a glazed look in his eyes, he dropped his luggage in the hallway and sauntered his way over to me. I wrapped my arms across my chest, feeling extremely exposed and cold despite all the clothes I wore. I pretended that I didn't hear him and turned my back to him as I reviewed the nonexistent messages on the answering machine._

"_There's no one baby," his hot breath was all over the back of my neck and I shut my eyes tightly, praying to God that I wouldn't have to go through sex with Felix knowing that my heart was breaking for Needy. I can put up a mask in front of thousands of people but I can't pretend to enjoy making love. The thought of a sweaty body grinding against my own challenged my more than accomplished gag reflex. The proximity is just too much to bear. _

_He pressed his body against my back and I felt the all-too familiar turgidity jutting just above my butt. One of his large hands clutched my left shoulder and the other one possessively snaked its way around my throat. That hand tilted my neck to the side for him to gain access to the juncture of my neck and collarbone: one of the erogenous zones of my body._

_I felt my body betray me as goosebumps rose over my skin and my breathing pattern began to quicken. His mouth sucked on my skin and I winced at the pleasurable pain that spread over the skin of my throat. Quickly, he undressed me; it was obvious that this wasn't going to make it to the bedroom. Instead, he brought us over to the back of the couch and bent me over, roaming his hands over the frail canvas of my back. _

_I must have been moaning because his grip on my hips tightened considerably, but I didn't notice anything; I wasn't inside my body. Instead, I was sitting cross-legged on the armchair across from where Felix was about to spear into my body. I was watching my face as it contorted in treacherous pleasure of the ministrations of Felix's devilishly swift fingers. _

_Tears rolled down from my eyes but when I brought my hand to my cheek, I felt nothing. My mind was pouring out all the pain in my soul through invisible tears that I couldn't even shed. I continued to watch angrily as Felix grasped the side of my head to join my mouth with his. Our tongues tangled and my body was absorbing all the pleasure but I couldn't _feel_ it. I was a ghost hovering over my rotting carcass, and I couldn't fathom why I just couldn't let go. I wanted to break free from the mortal restraints of my body but I was still connected to my life. There was no escaping fate; I still had my wretched life to continue._

_Soon after, it was finally over. I warily stood up from the armchair and neared the two sweaty, panting bodies. My arms were shoulder-width apart, carrying my weight and Felix's. His face was buried into my nape and my head was thrown back. My lips were parted as air freely passed through it. I had my eyes closed. The scene was too familiar for me and I realized that I was back where I had started: Felix was still controlling my life and I was allowing him to._

_Reluctantly, I placed my wispy fingers against my sweat-beaded forehead and before I even took a breath, I was back in the realm of reality, shuddering as aftershocks of pleasure ran through my body. Now with functioning tear ducts, I knew that at any moment I would burst into tears so I shoved the barely conscious Felix off my back and walked silently to the bathroom. There, I rinsed my sex-soaked thighs in the shower before collapsing against the wall._

_How much pain was I in? More importantly, how much pain was _Needy _in? I suddenly felt selfish for wallowing in my own self-pity when I knew that she was suffering just as badly as I was or even worse. I folded my legs in front of me so that I could rest my face on my knees. My chin quivered but I refused to let myself shed any tears. The benefits of a strong shower spigot: there's no telling if tears are falling, and it's loud enough so that no one can hear you cry._

Almost instantly, his lips halted their movements. He sighed then let go of me before retreating to the kitchen. I followed him.

He was rummaging through the refrigerator when I propped onto the counter. I assumed that he was looking for a bottle of water but instead, he held a bottle of beer as he turned around to face me. I resisted the urge to scowl or cock my eyebrow at him; it was barely after twelve and already he was divulging himself into a beer fest.

"Want one?" Felix gestured his bottle to me and I put up a hand.

"I'll pass," I said it with a curve of my lips in the attempts of covering my grimace. He shrugged then sipped noisily from his beer while I watched in silence, absently twisting my fingers together.

"So, we never really got to talk last night," I started, "I wanted to ask you how your trip went."

He closed his eyes in satisfaction. "It was amazing, babe! The locals were surprisingly easy to negotiate with and we drew up preliminary plans with a big oil company. Did I mention before that the beaches there are so awesome?" He sounded so animated and I was genuinely glad that he had a great time there; I wondered why he _had_ to come back.

"Uhm, where did you go again?" I felt a little guilty that I didn't so much as pay attention to him the whole week that he was gone.

"Victoria, Seychelles."

"Oh, I see."

"So what did you do while I was gone?" He nonchalantly took a swig from his bottle, but I knew him well enough to know that he was extremely curious about what I did during the past week—maybe even a little suspicious.

I shrugged; I had to do something to relieve the violent tremors quaking in my back as I remembered Needy's skin rubbing against mine.

"Nothing much. Girl stuff."

"Mmh. So you two spent a lot of time together?" He asked again. This time, he barely masked the distrust in his voice. Somehow I wanted to slap him but I quickly realized that he had every right to feel that way because now I loved another _woman_ more than him. He should feel furious with me while I feel extremely remorseful and guilty. So why did I want to slap him?

"You're sounding oddly accusatory, Felix." I quirked an eyebrow at him as he raised his hands in his innocence.

"No, no. I'm just asking. There's just a different way—,"

"A different way, what?" My heart sped up quickly at the thought of getting caught. My palms felt sweaty.

"Just—in the way you two looked at each other when I arrived. Like you knew something I didn't." He cocked his head slightly to the side as he remembered the scene at the front door.

"Well, she's my best friend. We share things with each other. I hardly think that's a reason for you to feel jealous." I was glad I thought quickly enough to drum up that excuse. When he took another swig from his bottle, I knew that he'd moved on thinking about other things, and I let out a quiet breath of relief.

"Seychelles was really great,"

"Mhmm," I couldn't think of a more intelligent reply.

"I might bring you there, sometime. You know, for a little getaway?" He smiled sheepishly at me after a while, and I realized that he had truly wanted to work things out between us. My head hurt.

"That'd be cool. I guess we can work something out. When did you plan for us to leave?"

"In three or four weeks."

Shit. I didn't expect it to be _that_ early. Probably, it would be for the better. If I was trying to move on from Needy, this might be good for me. Deep down inside though, I didn't want to leave at all. Parts of me were torn between making things right and letting go of all the foolishness in my life, but I knew that what I had with Needy was real, or _had_ been real. The wounds were still too fresh.

"Don't you think that's going to be a little difficult for you? I mean, you just got back and I'm sure you have a lot of things you have to work out on here." I reasoned out. There had to be a way around this.

Felix took a swig from his beer and made a dismissive gesture with his free hand. "The rest of them can take care of it. I'll be here 'til then, anyway. Besides, there's something so much more important to work on than just business." He looked at me straight-on and I knew that he was being serious.

I sighed in defeat. This would probably be a good thing if I was to start anew. Felix and I had a good thing going on before I met Needy and it would be easy to pick things up from there. What we had was special too and I couldn't just throw it away so easily. Above and beyond that point, Felix needs me. He needed a woman to go home to, someone who can take care of him.

But did _I_ need him? No, of course not. I was doing so well on my own before that it wouldn't be so hard to fall back into that rhythm of my own life again. In fact, the prospect of it sounded really tasteful and tempting. Because I couldn't have Needy in my life, everyone else paled in comparison.

-oOo-

My week had proceeded as usual. Felix had arrived on a Friday so we had the weekend to spend together. I was oddly surprised that he still remembered how to conduct a normal relationship. On Saturday, we stayed in and watched pay-per-view movies, ordered pizza in and just talked about what had happened when he left. As much as possible, I tried to leave Needy out which left me with very little stories to tell of my own. Felix, on the other hand, had many stories to tell many of which I couldn't totally understand because it was all business-centered. I encouraged him though because I knew that it made him happy when he saw me to be interested in his work. When night had fallen, we ordered Japanese and then remarkably, slept early.

This was the longest time I had ever spent with him and I realized that we had a lot of ground to recover to make up for what we had lost because of the distance between us. On Sunday, things were pretty quiet. We had slept in (actually, I had barely gotten any sleep that night, just trying to sift through the haze of my thoughts) and when we woke up, I made us breakfast burritos for brunch. He hadn't pressured me at all for morning sex, though he normally would have and the whole offbeat setting actually irked me. I realized that he had wanted to change but how far was he willing to go? If anything, Felix had what I liked to call a 'short-termed' mentality because new things that he likes to fit into his routines don't usually last for more than a week or so. He told me himself that it took thirty days for an activity to become a habit, but I didn't want to be anyone's _habit_. I was secretly hoping that this 'new leaf' was just part of his phase and that soon, we would eventually return to our own separate lifestyles.

"Are you excited for our trip?" Felix asked while we washed and put away the dishes and utensils we used for dinner. The question caught me off guard and I found myself truly contemplating on how to answer him. Having the opportunity to get away from the city and relax was truly tempting. I wasn't exactly stressed but thinking so much really does take a lot out of me every day. Just then I had a mental image of me lying on a chaise, lamenting my life's worth to an elderly man donning horn-rimmed glasses and holding up a clipboard, asking me the same, clichéd question. "_And how do you feel about that?"_ Maybe I _did_ need a therapist. At least then _someone_ would be concerned about my feelings, even if I had to pay money for it.

"Jennifer? You with me here?" Felix looked at me expectantly while handing over a clean dish for me to stock away. I blinked out of my reverie and looked back at him. He was wearing a white undershirt and plaid bottoms. His chin was sporting a five o'clock shadow and tossed over his shoulder was a dishrag. I almost thought he looked kind of adorable.

"Yeah, yes I am. Excited, I mean." I replied as I took the dish from his extended hand. He seemed pleased with my answer because he smiled as he continued scrubbing away the weekend's worth of dishes in the sink. On that note, one of his decrees in his new routine involved forgoing the dishwasher and washing the dishes ourselves because he claimed it would be therapeutic. I had to hand it to him, he did his research.

"When we get there, we're going to check into a hotel by the beach. Well, all of the hotels there are by beaches, but we're going to check into the best one." As he soaped and rinsed, he droned on about his plans for our trip which gave me the liberty to escape to my thoughts.

I realized that I had felt more than empty that whole weekend was because I hadn't painted. I did it on a semi-regular basis and I felt so tired as if I was suffering from withdrawal. Maybe I was. Because I knew I had to, after Felix gets into bed early for work the next day, I would sneak into my sacred cavern of thoughts and give myself my own, much needed therapeutic session.

-oOo-

Appropriately dressed in denim shorts and a big, white shirt that was decrepit of its original hems and seams, I crept into my painting room. Once inside, I slowly shut the door but didn't bother switching the lights on just yet. The darkness didn't frighten me here because all at once, my senses were filled with familiar scents and textures. The air was unfailingly heavy and snug, holding me comfortably in my position against the door. Suffused into the humidity was the smell of old oils and spirits and aging paper. The alcohol-based paints and other harmful chemicals were dangerous to be around all the time, but it all felt so right to me even if it did bring out the things inside that I tried so desperately to keep hidden.

After sufficiently filling my head with the stale paint fumes, I extended my left arm against the wall, feeling for the light switch before finally turning the lights on. As usual, my surroundings looked exactly the way I had left it. I reined my hair in by braiding it over my shoulder and I walked over to my latest painting. For a while, I just stared at it, examining what else was missing. The gray and brown colors warred against each other in a passionate encapsulation and the personified hunter's pursuit of them was vividly red, balancing the clash of gray and brown.

"Wait…" I said to myself, discovering what might've been missing. I drifted my hand over the canvas and imagined Needy's face over the brown, and mine over the gray. How I pictured it in my mind looked perfect. That was the missing element. Almost immediately, I reached for the paint tubes and brushes that were discarded on the floor and began mixing colors onto my palette.

I cleared my mind of everything except the mental picture I had of my painting and touched my brush to the canvas.

-oOo-

My painting was finished and I felt as if my life was complete enough so that I could die. The canvas was still perched on its easel but I covered it with some sheets as extra protection. Needy's face and mine were too clear in the picture; the message was perfect: in the obscurity of our lives, there was just the two of us but with a persistent presence hanging over our future: Felix. The juxtaposition of the warm brown and gray colors against the fiery red was enough to symbolize our precarious situation that we could die at any moment by his hand, that we were never safe.

-oOo-

Time passed so quickly that I hadn't noticed a month go by since I last saw or spoke to Needy. Felix never showed that he knew how long it'd been, but I doubt he even realized it in the first place. By now, he probably forgot I even had a best friend. I applauded myself for making it this far but I attributed my endurance to the painting. Every night I would stop and stare at it, getting lost in my fantasies of being with Needy. That alone was enough.

During this time, I hadn't really left the house except to restock on supplies and the occasional date night with Felix. He was getting better and better at playing the boyfriend role and I just wanted to fucking kill him for it. He was making it a little bit less than easy to forget why I loved him; all the same, it was harder, almost impossible, to forget why I loved Needy.

"Felix, I'm going out for some coffee, 'kay?" I called over my shoulder as I grabbed my keys from the counter and slipped into my flip flops. The sun was just about to set on a Friday afternoon and although Felix should've been at work that day, he preferred to take Friday afternoons off to either work on some non-business projects or spend time with me.

"Okay, pick me up a cup? You know how I like it." He was in the living room with what looked like blue prints unrolled over the coffee table. I walked over to him and kissed him on the cheek.

"Searing hot, absolutely no foam, and with two extra shots of espresso."

"You know it, babe."

"Mmh. See you later." With that, I bolted for the door, somehow very eager to get outside. I almost didn't get to hear Felix call out "I love you!" to which I never replied anymore.

It didn't take me long to drive out into the local mall strip. There was a variety of coffee shops there but Felix and I always preferred Beanhopper's Coffee. It was where we first met. I strode over to the barista's counter and dictated how I wanted my coffee. After paying, it struck me that if people were so particular about how they preferred their coffee, then why didn't they make it themselves?

The barista handed two steaming cups of brew and I couldn't wait 'til it was cool enough for me to drink. I used my back to push the door open and when I spun around, I almost dropped the cups from my hands.

Making her way through the grocery store's automatic doors, Needy suddenly glanced up from where her eyes were previously scanning the contents of her shopping bag. It was as if she knew that I was standing ten feet away from her. Our eyes locked and my breath hitched in my throat. Neither of us moved except that Needy's lips parted slightly as if she couldn't believe I was still alive.

People were coming out of Beanhopper's so I had to step over to the side to let them through. When I looked back into Needy's direction, she slowly walked towards me and with every step she took, I felt myself melt more and more.

When she was right in front of me, we just continued to stare at each other. She still looked disbelieving while I probably looked shell-shocked and stupid holding the two coffees.

"No fucking way," she whispered under her breath as she reached out her fingers towards my cheek. Like an electric jolt, her touch sprang me back to life and I exhaled sharply as I smiled. This was real.

Carelessly, I dropped the cups behind me and vaguely heard the thick splatter of the coffee as it hit the ground. The people behind me yelped as they avoided the spilt beverages. I threw myself at Needy and wrapped my arms tightly around her neck, burying my face into her shoulder. She smelled just as I remember and she felt just as warm.

"Oh my God," my voice broke as tears began to well up in my eyes. Needy hugged me tighter.

We broke away enough to touch our foreheads together; we didn't care that we were in the middle of the walkway. The moment we held each other, we locked ourselves away in our own Terabithia.

"I love you," Needy said, her warm breath mingling with mine as it seeped through my parted lips. I closed my eyes and smiled. I waited too_ long_ to hear that being said to me by someone to whom I could reciprocate the same feelings and more. I brought my lips to hers, not to seal them in my kiss, but so that I could repeat those words and really have her _feel_ them being said.

"I. Love. You." She sucked in my breath and caught my lips in a searing kiss that flooded through my frozen system and overwhelmed me with heat. I felt so insatiable for her that I moved my hand over her nape to bring her mouth and tongue closer to mine.

Several steamy kisses later, we reluctantly break away. Our eyes were still closed and we settled ourselves for nuzzling each other's noses instead. I was contented with just holding Needy in my arms until my thoughts drifted over a very dark place in my mind.

I gasped and jerked away. "Felix,"

"I need to see you again." Needy replied quickly while brushing tears away from my face; I hadn't realized that I was crying. I didn't want to leave her! But in some way, I didn't want Felix to find out that I was going to meet Needy again. I wouldn't be able to pretend that I loved him anymore. Not when I had Needy so close to me again. Who was I kidding when I thought that I could live without her in my life? She's the sun in my solar system; she keeps me together.

I had to think of a quick plan. "Next week. Same time. Same place." Needy visibly deflated as she realized that that was _seven_ days from now. Could we handle it? Suddenly it was so clear in her eyes. Excitement bubbled up in her face, and it took me a millisecond to understand: she wanted us to run away together. My heart elated at the possibility of being with Needy, starting over in a different place, not having to worry about being hunt—the portrait. It was going to come true. We would run away together yet have Felix hunt us down wherever we went.

Closing my eyes, I bent my head and laced my fingers behind Needy's back as I fiddled with the ends of her hair. "He's going to find us," I whispered weakly. I couldn't find a way out of this.

"Then break up with him,"

My head shot up. "It's not that simple." A couple tears fell down my face as I looked away, unable to bear the intense emotions pervaded in Needy's eyes. There was so much love that she had to give.

"Needy, I have to go." I should give myself a pat on the back for being strong enough to be ripped into two after so many separations. Go, Jennifer.

"I'll see you next week, then."

I nodded and extricated myself from her arms but we both knew that we didn't want to let go. When she finally released me, I held her cheek in my hand and pushed my mouth to hers, unwilling and unable to actually verbalize the word 'goodbye'. I held my lips against hers, squeezed my eyes shut, then walked away.

* * *

**Yes. It's time to review.**


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